Sonia to PM: At spl session, need spl focus on 9 issues

NT Correspondent

New Delhi: Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to point out that no agenda was listed for the special Parliament session and demanded that nine issues be raised including violence in Manipur and price rise so that there would be a discussion on them.

The issues listed by Gandhi include Centrestate relations, rise in cases of communal tension, border transgressions by China and the demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to investigate the transactions of the Adani business group in the light of several revelations.

"I must point out that this special session has been convened without any consultation with other political parties. None of us have any idea of its agenda. All we have been communicated is that all five days have been allocated for government business," Gandhi said in her letter.

"We most certainly want to participate in the Special Session because it will give us an opportunity to raise matters of public concern and importance. I earnestly hope that time will be allocated under the appropriate Rules for a discussion and debate on these issues," she said.

According to her party colleague Jairam Ramesh, this is the first time no agenda has been discussed or listed in the business of the House.

Seeking time to hold a discussion, Gandhi wrote of the "continued agony faced by people of Manipur and breakdown of Constitutional machinery and social harmony in the State".

She also brought up the rise in communal tension in different states such as Haryana. Raising the China issue, she listed the occupation of Indian territory by China and "challenges to our sovereignty on our borders in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh".

Gandhi also raised the "urgent need for a caste census", a demand which the Congress and some other parties have been raising for quite some time.

Listing the contents of Gandhi's letter to the prime minister, Congress general secretary Ramesh said at a press conference that the prime minister is in panic and is "fatigued".

He also alleged that there "autocracy" was prevailing in the country.

Attacking the prime minister, Ramesh claimed, "All his actions -- his revival of a dead NDA when our Bengaluru meeting was going on, his response to the formation of the INDIA group, his unilateral decision to call this five day session... These are all symbols of a panic-stricken administration.

After nine years, it is a case of maximum fatigue, maximum panic." "We decided that we will not boycott the session and we will raise issues of people," he noted.

If Oppn calls itself BHARAT, it might stop govt's 'game' of changing names: Tharoor

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor took a swipe at the government over the India-Bharat naming row, saying the opposition bloc could call itself the "Alliance for Betterment, Harmony And Responsible Advancement for Tomorrow (BHARAT)" and then perhaps the ruling party might stop the "fatuous game of changing names".

His remarks came after the row over G20 dinner invites of the President.