The Budget Session of the Kerala Assembly will begin on Monday with the address of Governor Arif Muhammad Khan.
The Assembly Session will be held in two phases till March 30 for a total of 32 days. The discussion on the motion expressing thanks to the Governor’s speech will be held on January 25, February 1 and 2.
Finance Minister KN Balagopal will present his third budget on 3 February. The discussions on the budget will be held from February 6 to 8. A special feature of this year’s first Assembly is that the session will come to an end after passing the entire budget before 31 March.
The Assembly Session is starting at a time when the tussle between the Governor and the government appears to be easing. The government had initially planned to skip the policy address of the Governor by holding the Assembly session as a continuation of the last Assembly session following the tension with the Governor.
However, later the government decided to start the new session with the Governor’s policy address. The government then decided to intimate the Governor about the closing of the last Assembly session and the Governor on Wednesday issued a declaration adjourning the previous session of the Assembly.
The Opposition is likely to raise Issues like buffer zone, police- mafia gang nexus and alleged nexus between drug mafia and CPI-M cadres in the House and the session is expected to be stormy.
Meanwhile, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has approved the policy announcement speech on Saturday. It is learnt that the Governor returned the copy of the speech to the government without any changes. The Cabinet approved the draft of the policy announcement speech of the Governor the other day.