Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 13: Keeping the agenda for the special session of Parliament from Monday still under wrap, the government has convened an all-party meeting on Sunday evening but again without assigning any agenda.
The Union Parliamentary Affairs minister Prahlad Joshi on Wednesday posted on X the invitation for the meeting. It said, “Ahead of the Parliament session from the 18th of this month, an all-party floor leaders meeting has been convened on the 17th at 4.30 PM. The invitation for the same has been sent to concerned leaders through email. Letter to follow.” The post also included a Kannada translation of the statement. Joshi is a Lok Sabha member from Karnataka’s Dharwad constituency.
The all-party meeting may discuss the agenda for next week’s session, a lack of clarity over which has led to furious speculation, including buzz the government will move a resolution to change the country’s official name from India to Bharat.
Opposition parties have slammed the government for not spelling out the agenda of the Session even with just a few days left for its commencement. Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, took a sharp dig. “Two working days to go before the Special Parliament Session begins and still not a word on the agenda. Only two people (seen as a reference to the PM and Union Home Minister Amit Shah) know! And we still call ourselves a parliamentary democracy,” he posted on X.
The “two man” jibe featured in Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s post too. “Today is September 13. The five-day Special Session of Parliament will commence five days from now and nobody-barring One Man (ok, perhaps the Other One too) has any sense of the agenda,” he said, highlighting five instances in which special session agendas were disclosed early.
The all-party meet call, however, has been played down by CPI leader D Raja, who said “This is a routine meeting… but before calling the special session the government should have consulted leaders of the opposition.” “Nobody knows what is the agenda for the special session. What are the issues that will be discussed?”
Last week invitations to G20 leaders from President Droupadi Murmu’s office described her as the “President of Bharat.” In its defence the government had pointed to a line in the Constitution that says “India, that is, Bharat, shall be a Union of States…”
Meanwhile, there is also talk the special session has been called to formally move the Parliament from the old building to the new; sources had said this may take place on September 19.
Several hit out for choosing a date that clashes with “India’s most important festival” – Ganesh Chaturthi on Tuesday. “This special session called during India’s most important festival of Ganesh Chaturthi… goes against Hindu sentiments!” Shiv Sena UBT’s Priyanka Chaturvedi said, while the Nationalist Congress Party’s Supriya Sule demanded it be rescheduled.
Ex-Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi has also written to the prime minister on behalf of the INDIA bloc of opposition parties pointing out that the special session had been convened without any consultation with the opposition parties. “None of us have any idea of its agenda… all we have been communicated is that all five days have been allocated for ‘government business’,” she told the Prime Minister.
With no specific agenda announced so far for the Session, speculations have been doing the rounds if it could be about Women’s Reservation Bill, Uniform Civil Code, simultaneous polls or other subjects.
The Government sources said the session’s agenda may include discussions on India as a ‘developed nation’. Other topics could include Chandrayaan-3, the Moon mission, and the widely praised G20 Summit that was held in Delhi last week.
