The Congress party, which took the lead in disrupting proceedings in the past, is slated to discuss its strategy at a specially-convened meeting of the party’s working committee on Monday. This session might also see the opposition raising their voices against the underlying controversial issues, thereby creating commotion and obstruct the functioning of the house.
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The Parliament session will commence on February 23.
Congress has upped the ante against Government on the JNU row in the wake of a sedition case against the varsity’s students union president Kanhaiya Kumar, dalit scholar of Hyderabad University Rohith Vemula’s suicide and the imposition and susequent revocation of President’s Rule in the party-ruled Arunachal Pradesh. There are different views on it which need to be debated: Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu after all-party meetWe suspect govt does not want Parliament to function.
Among those present in the meeting were Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, and Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay. During the session, the Rail Budget will be presented on 25th and General Budget on 29th of this month. He said there should be debate, discussion but without disruption.
The Rajya Sabha, where the government has a disadvantage with numbers, has in the last few sessions become the theatre of opposition politics.
Raising questions over the process of the appointment of Vice Chancellors of JNU and Delhi University, a number of opposition parties have come together against the government, accusing it of “undermining” the autonomy of the institutions.
The NDA government is in a minority in the Rajya Sabha where the Congress is the single-largest party.
“The country is being pushed into an anarchic state and unless the Parliament discusses and comes up with a decision on this, it is a very unsafe situation that is emerging in the country and the government is primarily responsible”.
However, there was enough indication that the crucial bills like GST are unlikely to be taken up in the first half of the session, which concludes on March 16.
Last year, the government faced embarrassing moments in the Rajya Sabha when the Opposition forced an amendment to the Motion of Thanks to the President for his address to the joint sitting of both the Houses.
The Winter Session had ended on December 23, leaving the Goods and Services Tax Bill and a number of other measures in limbo.
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“The conduct of the government is such that it is giving us issues to raise in the session”, said Salim.
