BHUBANESWAR: The ruling Biju Janata Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance as well as the Opposition parties on Tuesday finalised their strategy for the short Budget session of the State Assembly beginning Wednesday.

The Assembly, which will start with the address of Governor Rameshwar Thakur, will be in session till March 31.

As the Opposition parties led by Congress decided to embarrass the ruling alliance opposing chairing of the session by Speaker Maheswar Mohanty, the ruling alliance made up its mind to strongly back the Speaker on the floor of the House.

In order to emphasize their tirade against the Speaker, the Congress has also decided to move a no-confidence motion against Mr. Mohanty saying that he should not continue in the Speaker post in view of the cases pending against him.

The cases against Mr. Mohanty pertains to a land scam in Puri and seizure of a vehicle of the State Assembly carrying printed election materials of the Biju Janata Dal before the recent panchayat polls.

The Congress is also likely to disrupt the proceedings on the allegation that the ruling alliance, particularly the BJD, utilised the official machinery and money power to win the recent rural polls.

As the Congress was out to attack the alliance government on the controversy following registration of a case against the Speaker prior to the panchayat polls, the ruling alliance has also prepared itself to take on the Congress by raising protests against the alleged neglect of the State by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre.

Centre flayed

After attending the legislature party meeting of the BJD that was held at the Assembly, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told presspersons that the ruling parties would discuss issues pertaining to setting up of various educational institutes by the Central Government in the State.

Both the BJD and BJP have been critical of the Union Human Resource Development Ministry's change of stand on the setting up of a greenfield Indian Institute of Technology. Although it was initially announced that a Greenfield IIT would be set up in Orissa, the decision was changed recently.

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