Dhankhar meets Congress MPs in bid to end logjam

Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar met a Congress delegation led by Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday to end the ongoing impasse after three consecutive days of the second half of the budget session were washed out.

Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar met a Congress delegation led by Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday to end the ongoing impasse after three consecutive days of the second half of the budget session were washed out.

Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar during the meeting with Congress leaders in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The meeting, according to a Congress leader, produced “little result” as the principal Opposition party stuck to its demand for a joint parliamentary panel (JPC) probe into allegations of fraud levelled at the Adani Group by American firm Hindenburg Research. The leaders also flagged how Opposition parties were not given enough time to highlight their issues, said the leader cited above.

“It was general chitchat. He wanted us to suggest way forward to break logjam. We said JPC must be formed,” said a leader present in the meeting, requesting anonymity.

An official from Dhankhar’s office said the agenda of the meeting was to discuss smooth functioning of the Upper House. “The meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere.” This was the second meeting in as many days held by Dhankhar to end the ongoing logjam.

Meanwhile, Congress’ Lok Sabha floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to Speaker Om Birla seeking an opportunity for Opposition members “to ventilate their view points in the House, in a fair manner.”

Both Houses were disrupted again on Wednesday. While most of the business couldn’t be conducted, the government introduced The Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Bill, 2023 in the Lok Sabha.

Dhankhar’s meeting with senior Congress leaders including Digvijaya Singh, KC Venugopal, Pramod Tiwari, Jairam Ramesh and Mukul Wasnik assumed importance as he had called a floor leaders’ meeting on Tuesday to end the logjam.

In the meeting, Dhankhar asked for support and suggestions from the Congress to run the House but the Congress leaders said, “We stuck to our demand for a JPC. We also pointed out that the Opposition are not getting enough time to speak.”

Chowdhury, in his letter against “government-sponsored disruption in the House”, said, “It appears to me as if there is a well-hatched conspiracy on the part of the party in power to tarnish the image of an individual member of an Opposition Party (Sh. Rahul Gandhi). What is more disturbing for me to observe is that even the Ministers themselves vociferously take the lead to disrupt the proceedings.”

He said that the voice of the leaders of Opposition parties “is not being heard at all” and claimed “the mike before my table has been muted for the past three days as a result of which I failed to articulate my views in protest to the frivolous and wild allegations against my party leader.”

“I would like to make an appeal to you to kindly ensure that the Opposition members get an opportunity to ventilate their view points in the House, in a fair manner and thus enjoy the basic political right as an elected representative,” Chowdhury said.