Oppn slams govt on Winter session
NEWDELHI: The Opposition and the ruling parties continued to lock horns on Tuesday on the timing of the Winter session of Parliament with the Congress alleging that the government was shying away from facing questions on the Rafale deal, GST, and other issues and the BJP terming the allegations as “baseless and irresponsible”.
Usually, the winter session starts in November and finishes before Christmas. Amid the political slugfest, the NDA government is exploring two options: to convene a weeklong session after the end of polling in Gujarat on December 14 or hold it in two phases — a week before Christmas and a few days after that. A decision on the dates is likely to be taken next week.
Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, claimed that the government would convene a short session of 10 days. “This has been the worst year in terms of functioning of Parliament. We have had only 38 sittings so far,” he said at a press conference. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi later tweeted: “Modiji, stop hiding and open the Parliament so the truth of what you did on Rafale can be heard ...”
The opposition party has alleged that the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets negotiated by the NDA government was overpriced, a charge rejected by the government.
Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Congress was already looking for an excuse for its impending defeat in the state polls. “The government will seriously consider (holding the session on time) if Congress leaders make a public announcement that incumbent chief (Sonia Gandhi) and future president (Rahul Gandhi) and all its leaders will religiously sit in Parliament, from morning till evening, and won’t go to campaign,” he told reporters.
Lashing out at Kharge for his comments that PM Narendra Modi is “Brahma, the creator”, who alone knows when the winter session will be convened, Prasad said Modi is a “pradhan sevak” (prime servant). The Congress, he said, should answer who the “destroyer” of democracy in India was, referring to the Emergency promulgated by the Indira Gandhi government.
Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad alleged that Modi and his cabinet colleagues had turned into a “campaign machine” as they have been aggressively canvassing in Gujarat and elsewhere.
He claimed that he had spoken to parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar who failed to give him a convincing reply on possible dates for convening the session. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t know anything because all ministers get directions from the Prime Minister’s Office,” he said.