Two-week monsoon session of Himachal Assembly to begin on August 27

Shimla: The two week long monsoon session of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly beginning on Tuesday is likely to be stormy as both the ruling Congress and opposition BJP are gearing up to take on each other.

The BJP is all set to corner the Congress government for its decisions regarding cutting subsidies on power and stopping free water to rural areas besides closing and merging schools with less than five students and backing off from its poll promises.

The BJP legislators would also raise voice against the government's spending habits and the appointments of political aides in the Sukhu government, especially when the State Secretariat employees are pointing out government extravagance and delay in giving benefits like dearness allowance to employees.

On the other hand, the Congress is gearing up to defend its decisions. Being the first session after the budget which ended with defeat of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha elections with nine MLAs, including three independents and six Congress rebels voting for the BJP, the Congress members would raise the issue of the BJP trying to topple an elected Congress government with money power and forcing nine by-elections on the state.

Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania held an all-party meeting on Monday ahead of the session after but no BJP member attended the meeting. Pathania said that leader of the opposition Jai Ram Thakur told him over the phone that he is unwell.

The session would have ten sittings, including two private member days.

Pathania informed that 936 questions, including 640 starred and 296 unstarred, and seven calling attention motions have been received.

The Congress rebels were disqualified for defying a whip to vote in favour of the government during the cut motions and budget while three Independents resigned paving way for the bypolls in nine seats. The BJP fielded all nine of them from their respective seats and six of them lost the by-elections.

The house would have a new look with the number of women legislators increasing from one to three with the victory of Kamlesh Thakur from the Dehra Assembly seat and Anuradha Rana from the Lahaul and Spiti Assembly seat.

There would be no Independent MLA in the house for the first time and the Congress and BJP would now have 40 and 28 members respectively in the 68 member house.

For the first time, a husband- wife (Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and his wife Kamlesh Thakur) are members of the same house. Kamlesh Thakur had recently won the by-elections from the Dehra Assembly seat.