The Congress on Tuesday termed the Monsoon session of Parliament as "highly disappointing" and claimed the Government did not have an appetite to run proceedings even though the Opposition was willing to sit till the very end to debate and pass bills.
The principal Opposition party questioned the decision to curtail the session and alleged that after the Prime Minister, his Ministers too were "ignoring" Parliament. The Opposition was ready to sit on August 10 and 12 to discuss and pass Bills but the Government was in a rush to curtail the session, AICC general secretary, communication, and party's chief whip in Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh said at AICC press conference.
He said the Government had listed 32 Bills at the start of the session but managed to pass only seven in the Lok Sabha and five in the Rajya Sabha. "It was also extraordinary that one-and-a-half days of proceedings were disrupted by treasury benches which kept insisting on an apology from Congress president Sonia Gandhi for remarks made by the leader of the party in Lok Sabha who had already apologised for his statement both verbally as well as in writing," Ramesh said.
He said the coming together of opposition parties to demand a review of the Supreme Court's order on PMLA is a "huge step towards strengthening democracy". He also noted that "cadre mobilisation of the Congress on people's issues and ED high-handedness" was a "great benefit of the Monsoon session for the party and the August 5 anti-ED protest put the government and even Home Minister Amit Shah on the backfoot."
Congress spokesperson and deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi said the government knew about the holidays beforehand and asked why it did not plan accordingly.