kolkata the opposition on friday accused the mamata banerjee government of turning the state assembly into a mere rubber stamp they were reacting to a decision taken at an allparty meeting to guillotine the departmental budgets without discussion in a days session on saturday the opposition cried foul on friday accusing the mamata banerjee government of turning the west bengal assembly into a mere rubber stamp after the decision to guillotine the departmental budgets without a discussion in a days session on saturday was ratified in an allparty meeting it was an allparty meeting only in name the ruling trinamool congress steamrolled objections from all opposition parties the left front constituents congress and suci against the guillotine said deputy leader of the opposition anisur rahman at the assembly lobby the opposition members wanted the government to take a sanction for departmental expenses in a voteonaccount for a month and hold discussions on the departmental budgets in august accusing the chief minister of trying to avoid the assembly rahman said there would be no criticism of the budget proposals of the government if these were guillotined without a discussion such passing of almost all departmental budgets in guillotine was unprecedented in the assembly parliamentary affairs minister partha chatterjee however said the government had a constitutional obligation to pass the departmental budgets by july 31 if we delayed the budgets by going for another voteonaccount the developmental projects would have suffered he said chatterjee held the opposition responsible for the situation accusing them of trying to delay the panchayat polls which left them with just a days assembly session the government was ready for completion of the polling by july 9 in which case there would have been enough time to hold discussions on the departmental budgets with legislators busy campaigning and now with counting from july 29 there was now only one day saturday to pass the departmental budgets chatterjee said there would be an hours discussion on only the budget of the health and family welfare department all other budgets would be guillotined there would also be discussions on two finance department bills the appropriation bill and a bill to amend the value added tax act speaker biman banerjee said opposition members would have an opportunity to air their views in a mention hour which would be allowed on saturday he said there would be another short sitting of the assembly a continuation of the present budget session from august 26 to discuss a few other bills