Maharashtra Budget session from March 1-10; Fadnavis claims 'MVA using COVID-19 as excuse'

On Thursday, the Maharashtra government announced that the Budget session of the state legislature will take place from March 1 to March 10. The session shall commence with Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari's address and the state government will table the supplementary demands on the same day. While the legislature shall hold discussion on Koshyari's speech on March 2, the two days thereafter will be witness deliberations on the supplementary demands. On March 5, the MVA government will consider the proposals of opposition parties and also table some bills. The Budget will be presented in the Legislative Assembly on March 8.

Opposing the curtailment of the session, Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis walked out of the Business Advisory Committee. According to him, the government was using the growing number of COVID-19 cases as a pretext to avoid discussion on key issues grappling the state at present. Taking a dig at Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray's address on the novel coronavirus crisis, he alleged that the Sena supremo's suggestion did not apply to Ministers. He was referring to a crowd of nearly 10,000 people which gathered near the Pohradevi Temple in Washim when Maharashtra Forest Minister Sanjay Rathod visited the shrine despite COVID-19 curbs in the district. 

Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis remarked, "It was our demand that the full Budget session must be held. There are so many issues in the state pertaining to disconnecting the electricity, law and order and farmers. Where should we talk about these issues? But the government had come with a pre-decided mindset that we will not let the proceedings take place. They want to run away from the proceedings and so, they have decided to go for an extremely small session which is not as per the rules."

He added, "You talk about COVID-19 here and on the other hand, tens of thousands of people are going with the Ministers. Functions are going on. Is Coronavirus not for them? But the threat of COVID-19 is expressed when it comes to conducting the Session. We also put forth the question whether your (CM) suggestions are only for the opposition party. Do no rules apply to your Ministers? Why did you fear only coming here?"

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Maharashtra's COVID-19 spike

Maharashtra reported a surge of more than 2000 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, February 24, with 8807 persons testing positive for the novel coronavirus. This propelled the state's COVID-19 tally to 21,21,119. At present, there are 59,358 active cases in the state. With 2772 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 20,08,623. With 80 deaths reported in the day, the fatality toll has increased to 51,937. So far, 1,59,41,773 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 13.31 per cent, 94.70 per cent and 2.45 per cent respectively. 

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