Congress bid to unite opposition to corner Modi govt

With the Opposition divided over how to corner the Narendra Modi government during the monsoon session of Parliament, the Congress has decided to talk to leaders of different non-NDA parties to form a pressure group to take on the Centre over various issues such as corona, economy and unemployment.

Stressing the need to launch a scathing attack on the government, Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi and former party chief Rahul Gandhi discussed several issues with party MPs, giving final shape to the strategy for the monsoon session of Parliament. The issues were finalised and details of how to go about cornering the government over these matters were discussed.

 The Congress high command has asked senior party leaders Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to talk to leaders of Opposition parties, convincing them of working in a concerted manner against the government in Parliament.

The issues to be raised by the Congress at a high pitch include the government’s alleged mishandling of the corona crisis, decline in economy, growing unemployment and Chinese incursion. Rahul Gandhi believes that the Modi government has miserably failed on all these and other fronts. He said that the government does not have any clear-cut policy to effectively deal with these issues.

 However, what is to be seen is whether the Congress manages to unite the opposition in Parliament. The monsoon session begins from Monday. In the meeting of the Congress, the leaders who had written the letter to Sonia Gandhi were also present. But no internal issue was discussed in the meeting. Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, who were signatory of the letter, have been given the responsibility to speak with the Opposition parties’ leaders for bringing them together with the Congress against the government. The responsibility of chief whip has been given to Jairam Ramesh, which will affect the equations of the party. It will be Ramesh who, in capacity as chief whip, will be deciding which leader has to speak and which leader has to be given how much time.