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Ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) might face a noisy confrontation from the Opposition in the assembly on Monday over leak of police constable examination question paper.
A possible ruckus in the House is likely to delay the passage of crucial Value Added Tax (VAT) (Amendment) Bill and Police Bill which were scheduled to be taken up tomorrow.
The state government today cancelled the examination for the post of over 1,300 police constables across the state after a local newspaper published question papers ahead of the examination.
The Opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have also decided to corner the treasury bench over other pressing issues like minors getting pregnant in government run tribal schools and controversial provisions in the Police Bills.
"The Police Bill introduced by the BJD government violates Supreme Court direction and is aimed at providing supreme power to the police. We will oppose it and would like to see it examined by a select committee," said Narasingha Mishra, senior Congress MLA and Leader of Opposition in the assembly.
Both Congress and BJP have been pressing for inclusion of Leader of Opposition in the proposed State Security Commission. The commission would have chief minister as chairperson.
"We want to discuss all the issues related to education, health services and police bills in the assembly," said Basant Panda, chief of BJP legislature party.
According to business schedules of the assembly, discussions for budgetary allocation to all departments will continue till March 31 and no date has been fixed for discussion on the two bills. Sources said, as was the case with Survey and Settlement Bill which has been sent to the select committee due to lack of clarity, the VAT and Police Bill will also be sent to the committee. The state government, on February 16, introduced the Odisha Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill 2015. It empowers the state government to increase threshold limit for liability to pay tax from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh in case of manufacturers and Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh in case of general traders. Under the proposed law, the turnover limit for retailers to pay turnover tax has been increased from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 50 lakh.
BJD said, the bills will be cleared after taking all the parties into confidence.
"We have introduced two bills-VAT and the Police Bill. They will be cleared after considering the amendments demanded by the opposition members," said Bikram Keshari Arukh, state parliamentary affairs minister.
