Budget session: Opposition gears up to attack BJP on citizenship act, NRC

The Budget session of Parliament is set to begin on January 31 and will continue till April 3, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting her second Union

The Budget session of Parliament is set to begin on January 31 and will continue till April 3, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting her second Union Budget on February 1.

42 bills are pending before Parliament and are expected to be passed during budget session. (Raj K Raj/HT Photo)

The session is being held in two phases with a recess. The first phase will be from January 31 to February 11, while the second from March 2 to April 3. The President will convene both Houses of Parliament on the recommendation of the Union cabinet.

The upcoming budget session is likely to be a raucous one, where the Opposition will seek to rake up the current protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and also raise the economic slowdown.

Official data showed earlier this week that gross domestic product growth rose just 4.5 per cent in the July-September 2019 quarter, the lowest in a decade.

Sitharaman, with her budget, has the onerous task of reversing a sharp slowdown in the economy, with measures to spur demand and job creation.

The Opposition, including the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Samajwadi Party (SP), are likely to raise the issue of NRC.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has called a meeting of senior leaders on January 25 to formulate the party’s strategy for the upcoming budget session. However, a Congress functionary said the party will raise the issues of economic slowdown, growing unemployment, agrarian distress and price rise apart from keeping up the attack on the government on the CAA and the NRC. The Congress will also push for a discussion on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East.

The Congress is expected to renew its attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) over the NRC and the National Population Register (NPR) as an “attack on the poor”. In a rally in Raipur on December 27, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had said, “Whether it is NRC and NPR, it is a tax on poor people of the country.”

The BJP is expected to formalise its floor strategy in a high-level meeting soon, sources said. A total of 42 bills are pending before Parliament to be cleared during the upcoming Budget session.