Ahead of the special session of Parliament, the Centre has called an all-party meeting on September 17 at 4.40 pm, Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi said on Wednesday. Invitations have been said to all-party floor leaders, he said.
The announcement has come amid Opposition’s criticism of the government for not disclosing the agenda of the Parliament’s special session scheduled to take place from September 18 to 22.
The Centre didn’t reveal the agenda of the five-day special session at the time of the announcement. This led to several speculations in the Opposition camp. Congress leader Sonia Gandhi even wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing her displeasure over the move.
However, responding to Gandhi’s letter, Joshi had said that the agenda of the special session will be revealed at an appropriate time keeping in view the past precedents.
He said that the agenda of the session, according to the precedent, is discussed in an all party meeting before the start of the session and after the President’s announcement of the date for the new session.
“Before calling a session, consultations are never done with other political parties and nor do we discuss the issues. We do call leaders of all parties after the President announces the date for the new session for a meeting in which we discuss the issues and business that will taken up during the session,” Joshi said.
In her letter to PM Modi, Gandhi had also sought to discuss the issues of Manipur, China’s alleged occupation of Indian land and JPC formation to investigate Adani group among others. Read more on this
On this, the parliamentary affairs minister said that these issues were discussed and responded by the government during the no-confidence motion debate in the previous Monsoon session.
“We are ready for a debate on every issue. But the issues that you have mentioned have already been discussed during the no-confidence motion debate during the monsoon session of Parliament,” he said.