New Delhi:Ahead of the Monsoon session, Congress has decided to put up a joint candidate from the opposition for the post of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman. Congress' Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha (RS), Ghulam Nabi Azad has been given the responsibility to reach out to the like-minded parties in this regard.
Azad to reach out to like-minded parties to name a candidate for RS Dy Chairman The decision has been taken during Congress' Parliamentary Strategy Committee meeting held on Tuesday. The meeting was chaired by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, in which former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was also present, to churn out a strategy to corner the government in the upcoming Parliament session.
The post of RS Deputy Chairman fell vacant after the term of JD(U) MP Harivansh got ended in April 2020. The last date for filing nomination for the post is September 11..
Read:|Congress parliamentary strategy meet underway ahead of monsoon session
"It has been decided that the opposition will have a joint candidate and that has been left to Ghulam Nabi Ji and Ahmed Patel Ji to get the approval on the name from Congress President. Ghulam Nabi Ji is keeping in touch with the like-minded parties to decide over the name of the candidate," said a Congress functionary.
This was the first meeting where Congress dissenters and Gandhi loyalists came face to face, in the presence of Sonia Gandhi, since the stormy Congress Working Committee witnessed a political turmoil within the party as the 23 party dissenters were slammed in the meeting for questioning the party leadership in their letter.
The Committee has also decided to raise the issue of scrapping of Question Hour, in both the houses on the very first day of Monsoon Session. As the Secretaries of both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha have decided to do away with Question Hour, the opposition is going to demand its complete restoration.
Read:|Congress makes reforms in house panels, but 'dissenters' sidelined
Congress has also decided to raise the issues of border security, economic crisis, COVID surge, unemployment, GST compensation to states and many others.
Congress is also planning to launch protests outside the Parliament as well, to make a strong attack on the Government on issues like Indo-China border tensions and rise in Corona cases. A meeting with other opposition parties is also on the cards which is expected to be held soon, to discuss a combined strategy.
Apart from Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress MPs and the signatories of the dissent letter, Anand Sharma and Manish Tewari were also present in the meeting. Others who had attended the meeting were Rahul Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, AK Antony, Jairam Ramesh, KC Venugopal, Mallikarjun Kharge, Manickam Tagore, Gaurav Gogoi, Ravneet Bittu and K Suresh.
