Though the Congress had appointed Gandhis’ loyalist Union Minister Mallikarjun Kharge as party’s leader in the lok Sabha, whether he will get the status of leader of Opposition (loP) remained unclear even as the new Parliament session started on Wednesday.
“First let there be the Speaker of the House. It’s at Speaker’s discretion to decide on loP,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu said when asked about the possibility of Kharge being recognised as loP.Recalling the precedents, Naidu said, “There was no leader of Opposition during the tenure of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and also Rajiv Gandhi period.” Both the leaders of Opposition in the lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha enjoy the status of a Cabinet rank minister with equivalent salary and perks.
Meanwhile, senior party leader Shashi Tharoor defended Rahul against the growing criticism within the party for not taking up the onerous task to lead a small pack of 44 MPs in the lok Sabha. “Rahul has the responsibility of reinventing and reviving the Congress,” Tharoor said, adding. “The Congress is not only limited to 44 MPs in the lok Sabha. It is in the home, streets and villages of the country. Wherever there is a need for political action, you will see us there.”
However, Kharge’s appointment, sources said, had to do with the party’s apprehension that the ruling NDA dispensation may put roadblocks in giving a loP status to someone from the Gandhi-Nehru family, the other reason being Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s reluctance in donning the mantle.
Noting that Congress will not be limited to Parliament but will ‘sangharsh’ (agitate) in the entire country, Tharoor said Rahul is “the young face of the future of Congress” and thus the task of reinventing and reviving the Congress was “quite a lot” which is “very demanding”.
Further, at the AICC briefing, Tharoor said the Opposition would be “churlish” in ignoring the voices of inclusive outreach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was replying to questions on an article written by him in an American news website and insisted that the “accommodative and inclusive language should be welcomed and it would be churlish to ignore that”.He said he has not heard intolerant language or the language used in the run-up to the lok Sabha elections after Modi was sworn-in as the Prime Minister. He described the Prime Minster as “Modi 2.0” which he said has replaced “Modi 1.0”.
In the article under the heading “How Narendra Modi may have evolved into Modi 2.0”, Tharoor has emphasised “to almost everyone’s surprise... Modi and the BJP have eschewed the hubris and triumphalism they might have been assumed to have earned with their sweeping victory”.