Congress in winter session of Parliament: Don’t disrupt, discuss

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Sources in the Congress say the party want to “expose” and “corner” the government on issues like intolerance. For that they would like a discussion to take place. So, while the Left parties want house resolutions after discussions to condemn acts of intolerance, the Congress is adopting a wait and watch approach and says it wants a discussion. “Let’s see how the discussion progresses,” a senior leader said.

Sources said the party may scale up its demands later like a reply by the Prime Minister and his presence during the discussion.

For the record, its members have also given notices for moving motions on the atmosphere of fear and intimidation and attacks on the Constitution–it would take a call after judging the mood of the rest of the Opposition. The first two days of the session are devoted to a discussion on the Constitution to mark the 125th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar and the Congress will utilise the debate to launch an attack on the government.

At an all-party meeting convened by the government, Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge insisted that a resolution be passed at the end of the two-debate on a commitment to the Constitution and it be moved by the Chair and not the government. The government agreed and the Congress hopes the wording of the resolution would be an indirect indictment of the government.

As far as the GST bill is concerned, the Congress has already made it clear that there is “room for compromise.” The government has declared that it would hold talks with the Congress and the main opposition party has narrowed down the non-negotiables to three. The Congress is in a spot as it cannot be seen to be blocking the GST which it had authored and at the same time it cannot climb down from its demands.

It had given eight amendments but has narrowed them down to three – it wants a 18 per cent cap on tax to be charged, a scrapping of the proposal to levy an additional one per cent tax and wants the formation of a GST Disputes Settlement Authority specified in the Bill.