NEW DELHI: A combative opposition, led by the Congress, is preparing to corner the government over various issues during the winter session of Parliament beginning today, irrespective of the Assembly election results in the five states.
The new-found aggression in the grand old party has come from its own assessments and exit polls showing the Congress doing well in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgrah, Telangana and Mizoram polls. The results will be declared today.
For the Congress managers, the key issues are widespread rural distress, lack of jobs, sliding economy, autonomy of institutions, misuse of central probe agencies to harass political rivals, Rafale scam, bank frauds and alleged communal polarisation of voters.
“We have to stop the BJP’s assault on our institutions, stop the assault on the CBI, on the RBI, on the Election Commission, and on all institutions, assault on the Constitution. There was consensus that the BJP’s corruption on Rafale, demonetisation, other areas, is simply not acceptable and we are going to fight it and do whatever we can to expose it. We are going to work together both inside the Parliament and outside,” Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Monday, indicating the mood within the party.
He said all the opposition parties were on the same page .Congress sources said the party is particularly miffed about the raids against Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, and the renaming of cities by the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.
“This government misuses central agencies to settle scores with political rivals but ignores its own corruption. It tries to polarise voters to gain political mileage. We will seek accountability of the government on all the issues concerning the people,” senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said.
Party insiders said they would regularly consult other opposition parties on deciding the floor strategy during the session so that the government cannot play divide and rule.
The Congress aggression comes from the realisation that this is the last full session of Parliament for the Modi government as the next budget session was likely to be brief and focus merely on vote-on-account ahead of the national elections in April-May next year.