Delay in announcing the dates for the Winter Session of the Parliament led to a slugfest between the Congress and the BJP on Monday. Congress president Sonia Gandhi accused the Government of sabotaging the session while Finance Minister Arun Jaitley showed her the mirror saying the Congress too had done the same in the past.
“The Modi-Government in its arrogance has cast a dark shadow on India’s Parliamentary democracy by sabotaging the Winter Session of Parliament on flimsy grounds,” Sonia asserted.
Countering her, Jaitley said the Parliament Sessions have been re-scheduled in the past many a times during election time. Gujarat is going to polls on December 9 and December 14 with poll results for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, already through with polling on November 9, is set to be announced on December 18. The winter session is usually held from the middle of November till the third week of December.
This time round, the he government may be considering a short winter session lasting a week to ten days.
“The Modi-Government in its arrogance has cast a dark shadow on India’ Parliamentary democracy by sabotaging the Winter session of Parliament on flimsy grounds,” Gandhi said in her address at the meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) here in Delhi.
Refuting Sonia’s charge, Jaitley said dates of Parliament session were often changed to ensure they did not overlap with elections, and that the Congress had itself done so several times.
The finance minister said the Congress party when in power had also delayed a session in 2011 and even earlier because the sittings coincided with election campaigns.
“It has been a tradition and it has happened several times that Parliament sessions are rescheduled when an election is happening,” he told reporters in Rajkot.
The Union Minister, however, said the session would be held for sure and that the Congress will be “totally exposed”.
“The Congress has given the most corrupt Government in its ten years of rule, while Narendra Modi has given the most honest Government. By forcibly saying that a truth is a lie does not make it a lie,” Jaitley said.
Earlier on last Friday Union law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at its head will take a call on the issue of summoning the session.