Normally, the budget session of the state legislative assembly in every state in the country begins with the address of Governor of that state, which reflects the policies and programmes of the state government.
The budget speech is drafted and approved by the state cabinet and the Governor will only read out the same in the assembly on the first day of the budget session, which is the first session of the House every year.
It would be followed by a discussion on motion of thanks on the Governor’s address for a couple of days and it would end with the reply by the chief minister of the state.
In Telangana, too, the Governor has been following the same procedure – whether it was E S L Narasimhan in the past and later, Tamilisai Soundararajan for the last two years.
However, this time, the TRS government is learnt to have decided to commence the budget session this year, without the Governor’s address.
A decision to this effect was reportedly taken at the high-level meeting convened by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday.
Apparently, KCR wanted to make a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government at the Centre in the Governor’s speech, but after knowing that Tamilisai might reject it and go ahead with her own speech, he came up with the idea of doing away with the Governor’s address.
The officials reportedly told KCR that there were two such precedents in the past – in 1970 and in 2004 during the combined AP regime and so, he, too, can go ahead with the budget session without the Governor’s speech.
The budget session will commence from March 7. The budget will be approved by the state cabinet which will meet on March 6 at 5 am. The budget will be presented by finance minister T Harish Rao straightaway on March 7.
The Business Advisory Committee, which will meet on March 7, will decide on how many days the session will run.