UP Election may necessitate changes in Parliament sittings

New Delhi, Feb 22 (UNI) The UP assembly election may necessitate readjustment of the Lok Sabha sittings to enable leaders of various political parties to participate in the campaign, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said today.

Talking to newspersons after an all-party meeting convened by him on the eve of the Budget Session of Parliament, Mr Chatterjee said the dates of Railway Budget, and General Budget would remain as February 26 and February 28 respectively, and there would not reduction in the number of sittings.

The Business Advisory Committee would meet on February 26 evening to decide the Government agenda to be taken up on February 27, he said.

Mr Chatterjee said that the Budget Session would begin on February 23 with President APJ Abdul Kalam addressing the joint sitting of both the Houses.

Expressing confidence that the session would smooth, Mr Chatterjee appealed to all the political parties to cooperate with the chair so that more business could be taken up within the limited time.

He said he always assured them that all important issues would allowed to be raised under the rules and time constraint. "I will be too happy to permit discussions to all," he said. Among the important issues to be discussed were the Eleventh Five Year Plan and issues relating to children, he added.

The meeting which lasted 90 minutes was attended by leaders of almost all political parties, including Leader of the Opposition L K Advani and Railway Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also joined the members towards the fag end of the meeting and had lunch with them.

CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta told newspersons after the meeting that price rise would be on top of the party's agenda and a discussion on the issue should precede all other debates. He said the Government had failed to contain the price rise which demonstrated that the Government's economic policy had been a "total failure".

The BJP had already announced that it would move an adjournment motion on either price rise or national security. The formal decision in this regard is likely to be taken in the NDA meeting later in the day.

UNI