Congress plans to oppose 4 of 11 ordinances in Monsoon session

In the first meeting of the Congress Coordination Committee, the party MPs decided to oppose four out of the 11 ordinances in the upcoming Monsoon Session of the Parliament. The Committee's report will be submitted to interim party chief Sonia Gandhi for her approval.

New Delhi: Ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, the Congress is gearing up to oppose four out of 11 ordinances, including the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, Taxation and other laws.

Congress has also decided to write a letter to the Speakers of both the houses raising the issue of scrapping the Question Hour in upcoming session.

The decision was taken during the first meeting of Congress Coordination committee, held on Thursday, before the commencement of Monsoon Session. The meeting was attended by 10 MPs, 5 from each of the houses and was chaired by Congress' Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad.

"Due to some technical issues, our leader in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Choudhary wasn't able to take part in the meeting," said a Congress functionary who was also present in the meeting. Others, who attended the meeting were Jairam Ramesh, Manickam Tagore, Ahmed Patel, Gaurav Gogoi, Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ravneet Bittu, Koddikunil Suresh and KC Venugopal.

"We have already identified 15 issues which we are going to raise in the upcoming Parliament session, including COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, unemployment rate, India-China border tensions, migrant workers' problems, price rise, privatization of Public Sector Undertakings, Facebook row and many others," a Congress member told ETV Bharat.

Read:Congress attacks govt on jobs issue, demands end to privatisation

The committee also discussed all these issues with like-minded parties to ensure better coordination among the opposition to corner the government in Parliament.

A report has been prepared by Jairam Ramesh, convenor of this committee, which will be submitted to Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi to take a final call on party's stand over the 11 ordinances of Central Government.

Meeting of Congress Strategy Group will also be called soon, which will be attended by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Congress leaders having expertise in specific areas, like P Chidambaram may also be called to the meeting.

Congress has also decided to fight strongly against the scrapping of Question Hour in the Parliament session. "Our senior leaders will write a letter to the Speakers of both houses to raise this concern as it is unconstitutional. It will be sent to them in a day or two," said a party leader.

However, after a massive row erupted by opposition over the matter, it has been decided that the Question Hour will be held for the duration of 30 minutes, in which only unstarred questions will be taken up.

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