Ahead of the Winter session of Parliament, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday said that the House should be allowed to function smoothly as opposition leaders pushed for discussion on several key issues, including the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
"Parliament should not be stalled and it should function smoothly. Government will keep discussing with all parties to ensure smooth functioning of the House," Rijiju told reporters after an all-party meeting.
Asked whether the demand by the opposition for a discussion on SIR has been accepted, Rijiju said the agenda of the session will be decided by the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which will meet this evening.
Trinamool Congress leader Kalyan Banerjee said his party was ready to cooperate in running the House, provided treasury benches also cooperate with the opposition.
"Government should allow discussion on issues such as SIR. Forty persons have lost their life conducting SIR exercise," Banerjee said.
Tiruchi Siva of the DMK said all opposition parties are unanimous in demanding a discussion on SIR in the Winter session.
The Samajwadi Party said it will not allow the Parliament to function if a discussion on the SIR is not allowed.
"The Samajwadi Party has raised the issue of SIR because on a large scale, I have seen irregularities. First, we used to hear but now we are seeing that people's votes are being cut. In Bihar, there have been malpractices. We have demanded a discussion on it (SIR). They cannot shy away from it by citing the Election Commission," SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said.
"Why can't discussion be done when wrongdoing is being committed. If the prime minister's (Narendra Modi) name is cut then will a discussion not take place?" Yadav said.
"I have gone to many places, and I am still travelling. I have been a voter since 1967. In the Etawah district, all of us have been put under Category C. Everyone in the entire district has been placed in Category C. From our district, there are seven MPs from both Houses of Parliament and three MLAs, and every single one of them has been placed in Category C," he said.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who attended the meeting, called it a "mere formality" and said the Narendra Modi-led government has made its intentions clear by listing a subject for a short-duration discussion without any consultation with the Opposition.
"The all-party meeting called by the Modi government to discuss the agenda for the winter session of Parliament starting tomorrow is a mere formality," Ramesh said in a post on X.
"This session of 15 days will be the shortest in Parliamentary history. The Modi government has listed 13 Bills for passage. Of these one replaces an ordinance and two have gone through a committee of the Lok Sabha. So ten Bills have not been examined by the Standing Committee concerned," he said.
Of course, it is possible that a Bill not listed at present will suddenly get introduced towards the later part of the short session, Ramesh said.
The Winter session, which commences on Monday will have a total of 15 sittings while Parliament sessions usually have 20 sittings.
"The Modi government has made its intentions clear by listing a subject for a short duration discussion WITHOUT any consultation with the Opposition," he said on X.
Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, said his party had demanded a discussion on national security, air pollution, ensuring purity of voter list, farmers' issues and foreign policy.
"It seems the government, under the leadership of the prime minister and the home minister, is looking to finish off India's democracy and parliamentary traditions," he told reporters after the all-party meeting.
Gogoi said his party also demanded that there be a discussion on national security in the wake of the Delhi blast.
It seems the government does not want short duration discussion on national security, he claimed.
"The second is the security of democracy. The EC before, during and after elections is acting in a biased manner. There should be a discussion on the purity of the voter list," he said.
The all-party meeting was also attended by Congress's Pramod Tiwari, DMK’s T R Baalu, TMC’s Derek O’Brien and IUML’s E T Mohammed Bashir. The government delegation included Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Arjun Ram Meghwal.
(With inputs from PTI)