Sonia Gandhi chairs meeting to devise strategy in Parliament

New Delhi, Jun. 18 (HS): Congress Parliamentary  Party chairperson  Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday chaired a meeting of her party’s parliamentary strategy group  to chalk out the strategy in the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament.

According to party sources in Congress, the leaders in the meeting  discussed common agenda to ensure better floor coordination among the opposition parties.

The Congress President Rahul Gandhi was also present at the meeting held at his mother’s residence.

Senior Congress leaders like A.K.Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, P. Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary and K. Suresh also attended the meeting.

In an interview to a leading media source, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma  gave a sense of his party’s approach during the Parliament session.

Sharma urged the ruling Central government to end the ordinance culture. It should also respect the parliamentary process and important bills must be sent to the Parliament Committees before being discussed in the lower House.

The decision over appointment of the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha yet to be finalised,  party sources said the announcement would be made after the election of the Speaker in the lower House. Sonia Gandhi holds the authority of appointing the party leader in the Lok Sabha.

Congress needs to chalk out the strategy in the first session of Parliament. This meeting holds importance as the Union Budget and various key legislations including the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights On Marriage) Bill would be presented.

Congress despite being the largest opposition party has the responsibility to coordinate among the opposition parties to corner the ruling Modi government over critical issues.

It is to be noted that, Congress felt short of the required numbers for the post of the Leader of Opposition in the Lower House.  In the recent Lok Sabha elections, Congress won merely 52 seats after suffering a humiliating electoral defeat.