Today when the Odisha Assembly resumed its’ afternoon session at 3.11 PM, there were only 9 MLAs in the House of 147.

Obviously there was no “quorum” in the House.

The Deputy Speaker waited for 2 minutes and a single member turned up making it 10.

As there was no “quorum”, Lal Bihari Himrika adjourned the House till 3.30 PM.

Later Odisha Assembly resumed its proceedings and Demand for Grants of the Revenue & Disaster Management and School & Mass Education was taken up.

While the opposition lawmakers are boycotting the House demanding resignation of Badri Narayan Patra, Minister Housing & Urban Development and Pratap Jena, Minister School & Mass Education alleging their involvement in coal scam, most of the first timers in the ruling BJD are remaining absent.

“This has happened several times during the week”, admitted a senior member of the Treasury Bench.

“Most of the time we ignore as in absence of the opposition lawmakers, there are no one to point out the numbers”, revealed he.

In the House of 147 at least 14 MLAs are needed to be present at any point of time, so that quorum is maintained, said an official of Assembly Secretariat.

While BJD has 103 lawmakers in the House of 147, there should not have been any problem for the quorum, said a ruling party MLA.

But time and again we are facing the dearth of numbers for quorum, which is in fact a highly embarrassing situation for the Treasury Bench, admitted a ruling party member.

Even while Demand discussions on various departments are being taken, absence of ruling party lawmakers is felt more.

For an instance,on 22 July, when the crucial Demand for Grants of the Department of Agriculture was being taken up, there were only 9 lawmakers present in the House at one point of time.

However no body raised the issue and the House continued its proceedings for quite some time.

Later after mobilization, some of the lawmakers, those who were inside the premises of the House came inside the hall and quorum could be maintained.

While senior ruling party lawmakers feel bad about the lack of quorum repeatedly occurring in the House, some of them blame it on the BJDLP leadership.

“These first timers should be provided proper training and the lawmakers need to be made aware of their responsibilities”, said a former Minister.

“We are spending a fortune to run the House and lack of interest among the lawmakers to participate in the proceedings of the Assembly speaks volumes about our sincerity to handle lawmaking responsibility”, rued he.