Telangana: Governor's address to assembly in its present term unlikely

HYDERABAD: In what could be seen as a continuation of the frosty relations between Raj Bhavan and Pragati Bhavan, governor Tamilisai Soundararajan is unlikely to get a chance to address a joint session of Telangana assembly and legislative council in the present term. The assembly was last prorogued a year ago - on June 1, 2021.
Though the assembly budget session concluded on March 15 after conducting business for a week, the state government has not sought prorogation of the assembly. Unless the speaker asks for prorogation, the governor cannot issue prorogation notification. With strained relations between the governor and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao continuing, it is likely that the TRS government may not let the governor address the assembly.
If the assembly is prorogued by way of a notification, the governor has to issue a notification summoning the houses and also address the assembly during the first meeting of the year, especially budget session. If the house is not prorogued, the speaker and legislative council chairperson can convene their respective houses by issuing a notification.
The governor was not invited to address the assembly on the first day of the budget session two months ago. The government claimed since the assembly was not prorogued, there was no need for the governor's address.
Political analysts say, going by the current political scenario, the state government may go for early elections either by the end of this year or early next year. Till then, the government may not ask for prorogation of the legislative bodies.
According to assembly statistics, in the present term (2018), the house was summoned for sessions 10 times, but prorogued only seven times. Tamilisai Soundarajan took over as governor of the state in the first week of September 2019 and since then, the prorogation notification was issued four times every six months - November 2019, May 2020, November 2020 and June 2021. The assembly was not prorogued after Huzurabad bypoll and nomination of Padi Kaushik Reddy issue became a major controversy.
After the last prorogation a year ago, assembly sessions were convened from September 24 to October 8 in 2021 and March 7 to 15 this year. There were instances earlier, during the governorship of ESL Narasimhan, when the assembly was prorogued within a week in January 2019 and within a month in March and July 2019.
Sources said there was no constitutional obligation that the assembly or council should be prorogued within a certain period. "When the state bifurcation happened in 2014, the assembly was not prorogued for more than a year. In some states, the house was not prorogued," a senior official of the government said.