Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan yet to clear 3 pending bills, keeps govt guessing

HYDERABAD: The much-awaited truce between governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and the state government appears to have been confined to only clearing the state budget for 2023-24 in the assembly and allowing her speech on the first day of assembly budget session held in the first week of February.
Even 13 days after the assembly session has concluded, the governor has not cleared three bills out of total five bills, which were approved by the state assembly during its week-long budget session held between February 6 and 12. Those two cleared were appropriation bill for the year 2022 and another for 2023-24. The governor reportedly cleared them as finance bills cannot be held back without any valid reason.
Officers recall that Tamilisai had cleared GST amendment bill immediately after it was passed by state assembly. Sources said the governor was unhappy with the state government as after adjourning the assembly sine die, the government did not recommend for prorogation of assembly by the governor. Once the assembly is prorogued, the governor has to issue a notification calling for budget session next time.
During budget session, state assembly passed Prof Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University Amendment Bill 2023 for giving affiliation to BSc (agriculture) course in certain colleges being run by the state government.
The second bill pertained to Telangana Municipalities (Amendment) Bill on creation of Asifabad municipality with about 20 wards and removing two villages from Kollapur municipality in Nagarkurnool district. The other bill was Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill 2023 for creation of three major grampanchayats in Bhadrachalam and surrounding villages. The other two bills were appropriation bills.
“Though they are not very urgent bills, like previous bills such as increasing the minimum term three to four years for moving no-confidence motion against the existing municipal chairpersons and mayors, which is creating ripples, these bills need to be cleared by the governor at the earliest,” a senior official of the CMO said.
He said the governor raised objection and sought clarification on only one bill — common recruitment exam in the state universities — while the rest of the bills had no issues whatsoever.
Just before the budget session after both Raj Bhavan and Pragati Bhavan decided to bury the hatchet, it was believed that the governor would clear pending bills.