NEW DELHI: With the Lok Sabha set to begin a three-day debate on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor on Monday, the ruling alliance and the Opposition parties have lined up top speakers to put across their points of view.
The Congress on Sunday issued a whip to its MPs to be present in the Lok Sabha.
After a week-long standoff between the Opposition and the Treasury benches, the Monday session is expected to be stormy as some Opposition parties are expected to raise the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar as well.
While Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to open the discussion from the ruling camp, the principal Opposition party Congress has a line-up of Deputy Leader of Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi and K C Venugopal on the opening day. According to party sources, Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi may speak on Tuesday. The party has been allotted three hours to speak on the issue.
Sources said that besides Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be speaking on the issues, amid indications that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may intervene to convey his government's track record of a "robust" stand on national security.
The whip issued by Chief Whip Kodikunnil Suresh said, “Be present positively in Lok Sabha from 11:00 AM onwards till adjournment of the House on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday and support the Party Stand. This may be treated as three-line whip.”
The Lok Sabha Secretariat has listed a "special discussion on India’s strong, successful and decisive 'Operation Sindoor' in response to the terror attack in Pahalgam" in its agenda for Monday.
All eyes are on Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who had led the delegation to the US among other countries, and may be picked as a speaker by the Congress, as the seasoned Lok Sabha member's enthusiastic endorsement of the government's action following the terror attack has allegedly soured his ties with his party. There is no clarity from Congress sources on whether he will speak.
However, sources said that if Congress does not include Tharoor in the speaker list, the Lok Sabha Speaker has the discretion to invite him to speak on Operation Sindoor since he led an important delegation.
While 65 minutes have been allotted for the Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav and Rajeev Rai will speak on the issue. Besides its battery of ministers and leaders like Anurag Thakur, Sudhanshu Trivedi and Nishikant Dubey, the ruling NDA is expected to field its members from the seven multi-party delegations that had travelled to over 30 world capitals to present India's case after Operation Sindoor. They include Shrikant Shinde of the Shiv Sena, Sanjay Jha of the JD(U), and Harish Balayogi of the TDP, among others.
A bone of contention that remains between the government and the Opposition is the latter's demand for a discussion over the SIR in Bihar.
However, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju has said that every issue cannot be taken up for discussion in Parliament at once, and the government will take a call on the demand for debate on the SIR later, in line with the rules.
