Lucknow, Jan. 20 -- The inaugural session of the 86th All-India Presiding Officers' Conference (AIPOC) held here on Monday witnessed a rare unanimity among the legislature, the executive and the Opposition on growing concern about the shortening of state legislature sessions and the adverse impact on democratic functioning. Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, Uttar Pradesh governor Anandiben Patel and Leader of the Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Mata Prasad Pandey were all on the same page on the need to conduct legislature sessions in states for longer and more meaningful durations. All three expressed serious concern over the prevailing trend of state legislature sessions being convened for very short periods, which, they said, deprived elected representatives of adequate opportunities to debate issues of public importance and hold the executive accountable. Addressing the gathering, Birla said he had always maintained that sessions of state legislatures must run for a definite and sufficient period. "If democracy is to be strengthened, legislative sessions will have to be conducted for longer durations. The longer the Houses sit, the more issues will be discussed, and the more effectively public concerns will be addressed," he said. Birla also acknowledged with praise the recent instance of the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha conducting a marathon sitting of nearly 36 hours to deliberate on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), describing it as a positive example of meaningful legislative engagement. Patel echoed similar sentiments, stating that legislators did not get adequate opportunities to raise issues or articulate their viewpoints when Houses sit for only three to four days or even for sessions lasting just about 10 days. She said that when the Lok Sabha speaker himself was advocating longer sessions and the fixing of a minimum tenure for legislative sittings, such a practice should be implemented in earnest. "My own expectation is that the practice of holding sessions for just two or three days will stop. I have full faith in my chief minister that this concern will be addressed," the governor said. Earlier, Mata Prasad Pandey regretted that successive governments and executives had developed a tendency to convene sessions of state legislatures for increasingly shorter durations. "A definite time period for legislative sessions must be fixed. Longer sessions will strengthen democracy, as legislators will be able to speak freely and present their viewpoints on issues of public concern without being constrained by time," he said. Over the past few decades, the duration of sessions of the Uttar Pradesh bicameral legislature, like in many other states, has witnessed a marked decline, a trend that has increasingly worried constitutional experts and legislators alike....