The meetings decided to make an issue of the government’s “refusal” to share the special session’s agenda with the Opposition. It is learnt that either CPP chairperson Sonia Gandhi or LoP Mallikarjun Kharge would soon write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek clarity on the session agenda and demand that the session accommodate social-economic issues that the Opposition wants to raise and debate. While the Opposition’s resolve is to ‘constructively participate’ in the special session, it will also demand discussions on the latest developments on the Adani issue and will protest the government decision not to include question and answer sessions and zero hours.
It is learnt that during the 10 Janpath meeting of Congress parliamentary committee, many participants felt the party must adopt a politically calculated and tactful stand on the government move to change the name of the nation to Bharat even though its intention is highly suspect. They also felt since Article 1 of the Constitution clearly mentions “India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states”, the Congress need not rush to oppose the proposal blindly and wait to see whether the government proposes a legislation or a parliamentary resolution. Though some participants gave their views, the meeting is learnt to have decided to entrust inhouse constitutional experts to examine whether such a prospective bill and the one on synchronised polls have to be Constitution amendment bills. Some participants cautioned against ‘blind opposition’ to the proposals that could be politically exploited by BJP, according to some of the participants. Congress and other Opposition parties also chose to cautiously wait to see if the government would push bills for a uniform civil code or reserving one-third seats in legislatures for women. However, they will be vocal in opposing the one-nation-one-poll proposal and the committee the government formed for it.
Post-Congress meeting briefing, Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Gaurav Gogoi focussed on the lack of clarity/communication on the agenda for the special session and lamented that each day of the sitting has been earmarked for government business. “We are seeing for the first time that PM Modi and his associates announced a 5-day special session to divert attention from the INDIA meeting. We don’t have any information as to what matters will be taken up during this session… The Congress party has decided that it will participate in this special session, but discussion should be done on people’s issues,” Ramesh said. After the INDIA floor leaders meeting at Kharge’s residence, Gogoi accused the government of not revealing the session agenda and claimed, “BJP is scared of the unity of INDIA parties.” The INDIA floor leaders meeting also decided that they will hold morning meetings on all five days of the session on the listed House agenda for the day and take a joint stand on the floor.
INDIA leaders meet at Pawar house
Meanwhile, the first meeting of the coordination committee of INDIA bloc will be held on September 13 at the 6 Janpath residence of NCP chief Sharad Pawar. It will decide on the future programmes of the Opposition alliance and will firm up its parliamentary strategy. Meanwhile, INDIA bloc’s campaign committee held a preliminary hybrid meeting at Milap Bhawan. Participants tried to frame-up the common talking points of the alliance and decided to propose to the coordination committee of the alliance joint rallies in Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Nagpur and Chennai.
