Buoyed by the restoration of its State Governments in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand by the Supreme Court, the Congress is all set to corner the Government and the BJP in particular in both the houses of Parliament on the issue. Top Congress leaders met party chief Sonia Gandhi and her deputy Rahul Gandhi on Saturday to chalk out their strategy on crucial issues, including the GST bill for the upcoming Monsoon Session.
To break the ice over the crucial GST Bill, the Government has reached out to Congress to seek its support for the passage of GST bill pending for a long time and has sought the principal opposition party's support on the issue. lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan too has also convened an all-party meeting on Sunday evening for support of all parties for smooth functioning of Parliament.
The meeting held at the residence of Sonia Gandhi was attended among others by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, party's deputy leader in upper house Anand Sharma and chief whip in lok Sabha Jyotiraditya Scindia. leader of Congress in lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and chief whip in Rajya Sabha Satyavrat Chaturvedi are also likely to be present at the meeting.
The top party leaders are learnt to have discussed the party's stand on various issues . On the latest stand of Congress following Centre's peace leaf to the Opposition with regard to the GST Bill, leaders stuck to three important issues due to which the deadlocked has arisen. Party leaders also discussed the meetings of senior Cabinet Ministers with Congress leaders and anticipated that Centre will relent on the issue of cap of final limit of 18 percent paving the passage of the Bill.
"We have explained the logic of our reasoning to BJP. We have also said that these are not non solvable issue. There are six or seven other issues, we will highlight to the government to consider which important issues for people of India and they should be considered with an open mind and not with a closed one. We hope better sense will prevail and they will come back with a solution that is acceptable to all of us," AICC chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala said in a Press statement later.