KOHIMA, November 13 (NEPS): With the two-day Nagaland Legislative Assembly session to start next week, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Social Welfare, Kiyanilie Peseyie has stated that every member on the floor of assembly can ask questions during the Question Hour.
Talking to NEPS here, the Minister, who is also Chief Whip of NPF Legislature Party, Nagaland, has agreed to the “importance of Question Hour” saying that it had significance in the proceedings of assembly.
Denying that members during the NLA sessions were not allowed to ask any questions during Question Hour, Peseyie, who himself served as Speaker of the NLA for two terms from 2003 to 2013, said it was wrong. “The first hour of a sitting of assembly is devoted to questions and that hour is called Question Hour,” he stated. “It is the same rule everywhere in the country.”
Asking of questions is an “inherent and unfettered parliamentary right of members,” Peseyie said. He, however, clarified that if the members in the Assembly did not want to ask any questions, they cannot be forced to ask. With regard to party whip in the assembly, the Minister said he, as Chief Whip of NPF Legislature Party, Nagaland, could issue a whip to their MLAs only and it was not applicable to other MLAs belonging to BJP or independent legislators.
He said issuing a whip was to ensure discipline of their party members to stick to the party’s stand on certain issues and directing them to vote as per direction of their party Chief Whip. “But non-NPF legislators are not bound by my whip on the floor because I am not their partie’s whip,” he pointed out. “They (non-NPF legislators) can still ask questions,” he said.
