Ranchi, June 19: Theatre enthusiasts in the state capital would do well to attend the on-going session of the Assembly. They will get plenty of material for the scripts and a large number of political satires can evolve from the proceedings of the Jharkhand Assembly.

Indeed, even members and the presiding officer appear to have no illusion about the proceedings. A member of the treasury benches and Janata Dal (United) leader Radhakrishna Kishore laconically commented, ?If the papers stop reporting on the proceedings, I am sure no member will speak in the House. Most of them will even stop attending the session regularly.? Said probably in zest, but a telling commentary on both democracy and the legislature.

The presiding officer, Inder Singh Namdhari, who is deemed an erudite and a well-read politician, appears to be amused by the antics of the members in the House. He has been quoted as saying that the members neither know what to ask or how to ask questions nor do the members know how to reply to such questions. He has been kept busy pulling up ministers, asking them to be better prepared while replying to questions and in admonishing the Opposition.

There are 24 newcomers or first-timers in the Assembly. What is interesting is that their number is evenly divided between the BJP and the Opposition. But with more than two-thirds of the members being ?veterans? of at least one Assembly term, the session was expected to be more lively and meaningful.

The government?s replies left much to be desired even when the chief minister intervened and came to the rescue of Chandraprakash Chaudhary on the sensitive Tata lease-renewal issue. The short-notice question asked by BJP?s Saryu Rai was when the lease-renewal for the first three schedules, over which there is no dispute, notified. But instead of giving the date, Arjun Munda merely informed the House that he had cleared the files related to the renewal.

Rai obviously did not press the issue because he did not want to embarrass the government. But even the Opposition did not latch on to the subterfuge and ask for details.

The Opposition?s knee-jerk reactions is also causing consternation. Its members boycotted the session on Wednesday and threatened to raise the issue of disqualification of two ministers, Enos Ekka and Kamlesh Singh, from the House. But they never raised the issue again, not at least on the floor of the House.

The Opposition again boycotted the session on Friday when the budget was presented by the government The members also refused to participate in the debate on the budget that commenced the same day.

The Opposition, in fact, made a serious allegation when it said the Assembly secretariat was packed with Namdhari?s men. The Opposition leaders who attend the business advisory committee meetings claimed that there had been no agreement or discussion on deferring the budget placement to June 16.