Elections for the 18th Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly will be held from February 10, 2022 to March 7, 2022 in seven phases. The 17th Assembly held its sessions between May 2017 and December 2021. This document analyses the working of the 17th Assembly up to December 17, 2021.
- The Assembly held 15 sessions between May 2017 and December 2021 with 101 sitting days. The Assembly Procedures mandate at least three sessions and at least 90 sittings a year. The highest number of sittings in a full year during the 17th term of the Assembly was 25 (in 2018).
- Assembly Procedures also mandate convening a session for at least ten working days with an interval of two months. The Assembly met twice for more than ten days, and three times for ten days. Each of these were budget sessions. 60% of total sittings of the Assembly (61 days) were for budget sessions. The Assembly did not meet for more than seven days during any of its monsoon or winter sessions.
- The longest sitting of the Assembly was 36.4 hours long during the third session of 2019. The sitting started on October 2, 2019 at 11 am and went on till 11:42 am on the following day. During this sitting, the Assembly discussed effective steps towards achieving sustainable development goals of the United Nations on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The next longest sitting was on March 3, 2021, when the Assembly sat for 11 hours to discuss the state budget for 2021-22.
- Until December 2021, 146 Bills were introduced and passed (excluding appropriation Bills). All these Bills were introduced and passed in the same session. Key enactments include the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, and the Uttar Pradesh Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply and Purchase) (Amendment) Act, 2020.
- The highest number of Bills introduced and passed in the same session was 27, during the second session of 2020. The Assembly met for only three days in that session.
- Assembly Procedures provide that a Bill upon its introduction may be sent to a Select Committee for detailed examination. None of the Bills in this term were referred to a Select Committee.
57 Ordinances promulgated during the term
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- The Assembly accepts three types of questions: starred, unstarred and short-notice. Starred questions refer to questions orally asked on the floor of the Assembly while answers to unstarred questions are given in written form. Short-notice questions are questions relating to matters of urgent public importance, typically asked with a three days’ notice.
- In the session held in February 2021, 1,307 questions were answered in total which was the maximum in the Assembly’s term. Across all the sessions, 40 short-notice questions were answered.
- No questions were answered in the sessions held in October 2019 and August, 2020. While the first one was a special session, the latter was held at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Note that the questions that have been accepted in a particular session lapse if they are not tabled during the session. Questions that have been tabled, but have not been answered by the Ministry remain pending to be answered in the next session.
Deputy Speaker was elected with only five months left of the Assembly’s term
- The Deputy Speaker of the Assembly was elected over four years after the constitution of the Assembly and with only five months left of the Assembly’s term. Article 178 of the Constitution states that every state Legislative Assembly will choose two of its members to be Speaker and Deputy Speaker “as soon as may be” after the House is constituted.
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