Onia reshuffles party’s arliamentary hierarchy
Ngs in senior es such as dambaram, nish Tewari, bika Soni and vijaya Singh
In a major reshufthe Congress party’s parentary hierarchy, Congress ident Sonia Gandhi has nstituted the parliamengroups in Lok Sabha and a Sabha, bringing in senior s such as former Union isters P Chidambaram, ish Tewari, Ambika Soni former chief minister Diga Singh. andhi, in a letter said, “As chairperson of the CPP gress Parliamentary y), I have decided to reconte the following groups to itate and ensure the effecunctioning of our party in Houses of Parliament. e groups will meet daily ng the session and can t during the inter-session ods as well where Parliat issues are concerned.” he letter makes it official Bengal MP Adhir Ranjan wdhury will continue as eader of the Party (LOP) in ok Sabha. But inclusion of ish Tewari and Shashi roor in the group underthat Gandhi wants more s in the party’s parliamendecision-making process. estingly, both Tewari and roor were perceived as a ible replacements for wdhury. e two leaders have joined wdhury, Gaurav Gogoi uty leader), K Suresh (chief whip), Ravneet Singh Bittu and Manickam Tagore (both whips).
The Rajya Sabha hierarchy, which earlier had Mallikarjun Kharge as the Leader of the Opposition, Anand Sharma (deputy leader) and Jairam Ramesh (chief whip), will now include Chidambaram, Soni and Singh—the three senior leaders with years of experience in parliament as well as the party.
These groups can also meet whenever required while Mallikarjun Kharge will be the convener of these joint meetings. Reportedly, the groups will have various roles including mustering numbers, coordinating with various political parties and deciding on key floor issues such as support for a bill or the extent of cooperation with the government.
The groups are also responsible to decide which issue needs to be raised and how Congress will manoeuvre on issues raised by other parties.
The latest reshuffle in the parliamentary teams come just a day before the monsoon session of Parliament starts on Monday.
After two curtailed sessions, this one holds promise to be a full session.
It is also likely to be stormy as the Opposition wants to corner the government on economy, vaccination strategy, job loss and farm issues. The groups will have various roles. Mustering numbers, coordinating with various political parties and deciding on key floor issues such as support for a bill or the extent of cooperation with the government.
It will also decide which issue needs to be raised and how the Congress will manoeuvre on issues raised by other parties.
Only last week, the Congress had entrusted LOP Mallikarjun Kharge with coordination with other parties in Parliament.
Kharge, a former Union minister, is expected to play the key role in Parliament as the lack of Opposition unity has proved to be an advantage for the ruling dispensation in passing key bills such as on Triple Talaq, bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir as union territories and the scrapping of Article 370.
The groups with senior, more accessible leaders also come when the Opposition camp has seen signs of fissures with a few regional parties trying to carve out their independent spaces keeping in mind the upcoming state elections and the larger goal of 2024 national poll.
The Congress already has two panels—the parliamentary strategy group headed by Gandhi to look into the larger issues relating to parliamentary functioning and a smaller group headed by P Chidambaram to carefully scrutinize all government bills.