New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday said it is planning to play an aggressive role and seek answers from the Centre on various burning issues and will coordinate with the like-minded parties to put up a united opposition during the Monsoon Session of Parliament starting July 18.
“There are a host of issues to tackle in the coming Parliament session, right from inflation to unemployment, Chinese threat on our borders, sliding economy, violation of Constitution, social harmony, Agnipath scheme, misuse of central agencies, floods and natural disasters, over which the government has a lot to answer,” deputy leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi said in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat.
Gogoi, who represents the Kaliabor parliamentary constituency from Assam in the Lok Sabha, clarified that these were the issues he could randomly think of and that the party’s parliamentary strategy group would meet in the coming days to prioritize the list. “The issues to be raised in the session would be discussed and finalized by this group but these are the obvious topics, including the threats to journalists for speaking the truth,” he said.
The Congress, which is working along with other parties to ensure a good show by the joint opposition Presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha, will ensure the opposition comes across as a united team during the session too, said Gogoi. “It has been a past practice that the Congress invites all like-minded opposition parties to put up the national issues on the floor of the House. It will continue in the coming session as well,” said Gogoi.
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The Presidential polls scheduled to be held on July 18, the first day of the monsoon session, are a contest between two ideologies, the Congress lawmaker said. “The post of the President of India is a highly respectable post that represents the diversity and aspirations of every community, caste, and tribe of India. The Presidential election is not an election between two people, but an election between two ideas and we have seen how the ideas and the approach of the current BJP government have put India at risk, whether economic risk, national security risk, financial risk, and at social risk. So, all these issues will matter in the presidential elections in the days to come,” he said.
The Congress leader slammed the Centre for not paying enough attention to the north-eastern region, which has been ravaged by floods, or to the problems being faced by the farmers and the jobless youth. “This BJP’s brutal quest for power is what is making the people of this country suffer. No matter where they are, no matter who they are, whether it is the people of the north-east, whether it is the farmers, the unemployed youth on the streets and people of India will continue to suffer,” he said.
Noting that in the past either union ministers or the Prime Minister used to visit flood-ravaged north-east to assess the situation and offer relief and urgent aid, Gogoi said “the Prime Minister was busy either in campaigning for Gujarat elections or trying to destabilize a government in Maharashtra.”
