The Congress on Tuesday, September 5 said that it will participate in the Parliament's Special Session convened by the government and raise the issue of inflation, unemployment, losses in Himachal Pradesh and other northeastern states due to heavy rains, violence in Manipur and Haryana's Nuh among other issues. Addressing a press conference here at the party headquarters after the Parliament's Strategy Group meeting at the residence of Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, which was also attended by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and several other Congress MPs, party MP Gaurav Gogoi said: "We discussed the important issues in front of the country, including economic issues whether it is inflation, unemployment."
Gogoi said that the losses in Himachal Pradesh and in northeastern states due to flood and landslides due to rain were also discussed. He said that during the meeting, the Manipur violence issue was discussed as people were still camping in the relief camps. "We will also raise the issue of Adani Group... and our demand for a JPC and the violence in Haryana's Nuh, due to the divisive politics of the BJP. These are the main issues in front of the country, but what is surprising that a special session has been called and the BJP itself is unable to clear what are the important agenda," Gogoi said.
He said that the Parliament is of the country and the government has accountability towards country and has to maintain transparency. "Our stand is clear that the Parliament belongs to people of the country and we want the issues of people in the Parliament discussed and we are ready for giving suggestion and participate in the session. Now it is up to the government to tell the agenda," he said.
Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said: "When a Special Session is called, the agenda and subject is shared with all parties and discussions are held with everyone. For the first time, we are seeing that suddenly that when the meeting of INDIA bloc was taking place in Mumbai then to divert the attention from INDIA a special session was announced. We don't have the knowledge of what will be taken up in the session."
He further said that on all the five days government business is mentioned to be taken up during the Parliament's Special Session. "After INDIA bloc meeting we will say that we will like to discuss the issues of people and we want that under which rule discussions can take place in Parliament. It is impossible that for five days it will be only government business. What will we do there, will we there be as a mute spectator and only listen to the praises for the Prime Minister?" Ramesh asked.
He also said that issues of economic, political, foreign politics, border issues should also be discussed in Parliament Session. "We hope that during this special session, the opposition will be taken along," Ramesh said and added that we would demand that under any rule there should be a detailed discussion on all issues.
Besides Kharge, several Congress MPs including Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Shaktisinh Gohil, Manish Tewari, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Pramod Tiwari, KC Venugopal, Rajani Patil, Ramesh, Manickam Tagore, Ravneet Singh Bittu, Syed Naseer Hussain, P Chidambaram, Shashi Tharoor, Gogoi and K Suresh arrived for meeting of the Congres Parliamentary Strategy Group at 10 Janpath here. The meeting at Sonia Gandhi's residence lasted for over one hour.