Dehradun, Feb. 20 -- Congress MLAs are perfectly right in demanding that the budget session of the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha be held for the necessary number of days required to deal with legislative business. There is not just the motion on the Governor's address to be discussed, but there will also be the budget that has to be debated in all its aspects. There has been a general tendency nationwide to increasingly shorten assembly sessions and treat them as mere formalities. This is certainly not healthy for democracy.
The focus of governments is obviously on the executive branch, where ministers run departments, with MLAs also exercising clout with discretionary funding. On the other hand, it is only the opposition that wants time on the...