Union Minister Pralhad Joshi will chair a meeting on Saturday with the floor leaders of political parties in both Houses of Parliament. How much business gets done during the session will hinge to a large extent on this meeting’s outcome.
A day before the results of four Assembly elections are announced, setting the stage for the Lok Sabha polls just months away, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi — who was incidentally the BJP’s poll in-charge for Rajasthan — will hold a meeting with the floor leaders of political parties in both the Houses of Parliament ahead of the Winter Session that will begin Monday and is scheduled to continue till December 24. The all-party meeting will be held from 11 am at the Parliament Library Building.
Winter Session in context
Starting a day after the election results, it will be interesting to note the dynamics at play depending on who wins and how much. If the Congress is the overwhelming winner on Sunday, it will not only give the grand old party more boost when it comes to dealing with the BJP in the lead-in to the general elections, but it will also provide the party with more leverage within the INDIA bloc of Opposition parties. During the recent elections in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress and one of the INDIA alliance’s constituents Samajwadi Party clashed over the lack of seat-sharing.
Not of immediate concern, but Sunday’s results will also have an impact in the July-August 2024 Rajya Sabha elections when 65 seats in the Upper House will be up for grabs. Among these will be 12 seats from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Chhattisgarh.
What to expect: The Winter Session is expected to be off to a rocky start on Monday as the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee headed by BJP’s Vinod Sonkar tables its report recommending Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra’s expulsion from the Lok Sabha. The report on the alleged cash-for-queries scam has been opposed by the Opposition MPs in the panel. So, the Opposition is expected to band together once the report is introduced. This is why the all-party meeting will be crucial as how much business gets done during the session will depend to a large extent on its outcome.
The government has listed 18 Bills during the session, including two to extend the provisions of the women’s reservation law to Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry and three to replace the criminal laws. The latter is most likely to be opposed by most non-BJP parties. When introduced in the Monsoon Session, the Congress had criticised the government saying it was part of the larger gameplan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to leave his imprint on everything. Such blanket amendments were only “animated by this negative desire”, it said at the time.
According to the Lok Sabha Secretariat, the government also plans to bring a Bill to increase the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly’s strength from 107 to 114 in a bid to provide representation to Kashmiri migrants, displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and Scheduled Tribes.
Key RSS-BJP meeting in Punjab
Several top RSS leaders including its joint general secretary Arun Kumar will attend the bhog ceremony of RSS pracharak Chiranjeev Singh in Patiala on Saturday, reports Navjeevan Gopal. The first Sikh pracharak of the Sangh, Chiranjeev breathed his last in a hospital in Ludhiana last month.
After the ceremony, Arun Kumar who is the coordinator linking the Sangh and the BJP, is scheduled to chair a meeting of state BJP leaders in Chandigarh. The BJP is now strategising ways to expand its base in the border state ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The party has been planning to increase its footprint in the state since former Congress leader Sunil Jakhar took charge of the state unit in July. With no signs of any rapprochement with Shiromani Akali Dal, the BJP is banking on Central schemes to strike a chord in Punjab’s rural belt, a segment it had once left for its former ally to take care of. The Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, the party’s flagship initiative to highlight Central welfare schemes, is currently travelling across the state and will conclude in Tarn Taran on Monday.
