Govt Nixes Opposition Demand for Special Session by Early Announcement of Monsoon Session Dates
New Delhi: A day after 16 opposition parties penned a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that a special session of parliament be convened to discuss the Pahalgam terror attack, Operation Sindoor and subsequent developments, the Union government on Wednesday (June 4) effectively nixed the demand by announcing the dates for the monsoon session unusually early.
While the government did not directly respond to the opposition's demand, Union minister for parliamentary affairs Kiren Rijiju said on Wednesday that 'the government has decided to recommend to (the) Honourable President to convene the monsoon session of parliament from July 21 to August 12.'
On Tuesday, 16 opposition parties in their letter to Modi referred to 'serious questions' facing the nation about the attack, conflict, killing of civilians in Poonch, Uri, Rajouri and the ceasefire announcement, and the 'implications on our national security and foreign policy'.
The letter also highlighted that the opposition has supported the government's efforts to engage with the international community on India's position and that the government has 'briefed foreign nations and the media but not the parliament'.
Following Rijiju's announcement that the monsoon session will be held in July, opposition parties accused the government of 'running away' from parliament sessions.
In a statement, TMC MP and the party's parliamentary leader in the Rajya Sabha, Derek O'Brien said that the government suffers from 'Parliamentophobia.'
'Parliamentophobia (noun). My word for the acute condition of a (Modi) government who have a morbid fear of facing Parliament. Running away from a Special Session,' he said.
Congress MP and the party's general secretary media and communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh said that 'never have the dates been declared 47 days before a session is due.'
'This has been done solely to run away from the demand being made repeatedly by the Indian National Congress and the INDIA parties for an immediate special session to discuss the brutal Pahalgam attacks and the failure to bring the terrorists who did the killings themselves to justice, the impacts of Operation Sindoor and its blatant politicisation, the revelations of the CDS in Singapore, the hyphenation of India and Pakistan, the embedding of China in the Pakistan Air Force, the continuous claims of President Trump on mediation, and the numerous failures of our foreign policy and diplomatic engagements,' he said.
The opposition has been demanding that the government come clean on US President Donald Trump's claims of having mediated the ceasefire between India and Pakistan on May 10 following four days of tense military conflict. While India has rejected this and said that the ceasefire was decided bilaterally, Trump has continued to make the claim including that he had brought the two countries back from the brink of a nuclear war by using trade as leverage.
Just on Wednesday, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at Modi and said that Trump had made him surrender to Pakistan by saying, 'Narendra..surrender.' The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has accused Gandhi of speaking the language of Pakistan and has now accused him of going a step further by making statements that even Pakistan is not.
'By making extremely cheap, low-level statements, the self-proclaimed, self-styled, supreme leader, the leader of opposition, Rahul Gandhi, is telling the world that even after becoming the LoP, he lacks seriousness and maturity that the post requires,' said BJP MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi at a press conference on Wednesday.
'The manner in which Rahul Gandhi compared our armed forces' valour the briefing given by our armed forces on Operation Sindoor's success with surrender, shows how sick and dangerous his mentality has become.'
The Wire has reported that while no special session has been held following terror attacks in the past and the decision to convene a parliament session rests with the government, during both the 1962 and 1971 wars, the parliament had been kept in loop.
The parliament was also briefed after the last major terror attack on civilians – the Mumbai terror attack in November 2008 – as the winter session convened only days after the attack.
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