From Cabinet to Congress, leaders and political parties shun digital meetings

Union cabinet meetings have been held in offline mode over the last two months. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also chaired two meetings of the Union council of ministers (78 members) in the spacious Rashtrapati Bhavan cultural centre on September 14 and September 28

Sitaram Yechury is a busy man these days. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary is coordinating with leaders of at least 18 Opposition parties for a meeting—a physical one—in New Delhi. The last such meeting on August 20 was an easier affair. It was online and leaders from Tamil Nadu to West Bengal just logged in from their offices instead of flying to the national capital.

Union cabinet meetings have been held in offline mode over the last two months. (PTI Photo/Representative Use)

As Covid-19 cases in India continue to dip and more and more people are getting vaccinated, political parties have begun to shun digital meetings—the mainstay for India’s political and administrative activities for over 18 months.

Two months after the pandemic hit India in January 2020, India’s top decision-making body, the Union cabinet, switched online for meetings by March as a nationwide lockdown was imposed to check it. Initially, a big centre table in the Cabinet room was removed to make space for the social distancing of ministers. Later, ministers were told to log on through a secured portal for online Cabinet meetings.

Union cabinet meetings have been held in offline mode over the last two months. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also chaired two meetings of the Union council of ministers (78 members) in the spacious Rashtrapati Bhavan cultural centre on September 14 and September 28.

President Ram Nath Kovind, whose meetings and tours were earlier restricted, addressed union ministers at the September 14 meeting. He also resumed his official tours and went to his ancestral village near Kanpur in June.

The Congress, too, held the first offline meeting of the party’s top decision-making body, Congress Working Committee (CWC), in 18 months on October 16. Congress president Sonia Gandhi presided over three CWC, as well as two meetings with the party’s Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha lawmakers online in view of the pandemic. She also held a meeting of Opposition leaders online on August 20.

The Congress also called former foreign secretaries Shiv Shankar Menon and Shyam Saran for an online briefing on Afghanistan a day before external affairs minister S Jaishankar held an all-party meeting on the situation in India’s neighbourhood in August.

Yechury’s party, which once infamously opposed computerisation in West Bengal, has held meetings of its Politburo and Central Committee online. The last Politburo meeting was held offline in New Delhi last week.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, too, has scheduled its next National Executive meeting offline this month.