LUCKNOW: The UP legislative assembly may honour and felicitate MLAs who have completed their 25 years as members of the House, though a final decision is awaited.
Since the term of the assembly is coming to an end with the next elections scheduled to be held in 2022, the Speaker has to take the call whether or not to follow his predecessor’s tradition of honouring the senior ones.
Sources confirmed to TOI that a delegation of seniormost MLAs had also called on Speaker Hridaya Narain Dixit to apprise him of the past tradition when then Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had honoured the seniormost MLAs including Suresh Khanna, Shyam Sunder Sharma and Durga Shankar Yadav and had felicitated them in 2016.
Khanna is now the Parliamentary affairs minister in Yogi government. The three have now completed their eighth term in the Assembly without changing their constituencies.
Among the top ranking MLAs this time are two ministers, Satish Mahana and Jai Pratap Singh, apart from Shyam Sunder Sharma BSP MLA and Raghuraj Pratap Singh also an Independent, though he has floated his own political outfit.
Veteran Shyam Sunder Sharma has been consecutively a member of the assembly from Manth constituency in Mathura since 1989 and was minister in Kalyan Singh and Mayawati governments.
Similarly, Satish Mahana, who is MLA from Maharajganj in Kanpur, with roots in the RSS and the Bajrang Dal, has worked with five chief ministers in the past and feels inspired by the “energetic and hardworking chief minister Yogi Adityanath”.
Similarly, Raghuraj Pratap Singh remains literally invincible in his Kunda assembly constituency for the 8th term despite stiff challenges by his political opponents including former chief ministers Kalyan Singh and Mayawati.
Talking to TOI, Raghuraj Pratap Singh, popularly known as Raja Bhaiyya, confirmed that some senior MLAs had met the Speaker to draw his attention towards the glorious tradition of honouring the seniormost MLAs of the House. The delegation also reminded the Speaker of similar felicitation in the previous state assembly.
Later on, talking to TOI, the Speaker said that a delegation had met him in this regard and he would actively consider their proposal.