NEW DELHI: A meeting of the Congress Parliamentary party will be chaired by the party's interim President Sonia Gandhi on April 5 at 9.30 am in the Parliament.
This comes as seven key Bills, including "The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill" and "The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill", have been listed on the agenda of the Rajya Sabha for the last week of the ongoing Budget session. Six of the seven Bills listed on the agenda of the Rajya Sabha have already been passed by the Lok Sabha.
"The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022", passed by the Lok Sabha last week, proposes to authorise the police to take measurements of convicts and accused for the purposes of their identifications and investigations in criminal matters to preserve records.
The second half of the Budget session commenced on March 14 and will conclude on April 8. The first half of the Budget session began on January 31 and concluded on February 11.
Moreover, these days, the Congress party is lashing out at the Centre against the fuel price hike that is reverberating across the country. Fuel prices continue to rise with petrol and diesel rates rising by another 80 paise per litre each on Sunday, taking the total increase in rates in less than two weeks to Rs 8 per litre.
Congress on March 11 saw a significant defeat in Punjab wherein the new entrant Aam Aadmi Party snatched power from Congress in the state. The party also failed to make a mark in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa.
Keeping in view of this development and ahead of the upcoming Assembly Elections slated to be held this year in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, wherein Bharatiya Janata Party is in power, the meeting called by the Congress party hold crucial importance.
Notably, the Congress party is in power in five of the total states. It has chief ministers, however, only in two states: Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In the other three -- Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu -- the Congress is a junior partner.