Congress decides to field a joint opposition candidate for Rajya Sabha deputy speaker

The Congress parliamentary strategy group, that met on September 8, decided to work for fielding a joint candidate of the Opposition for the post of deputy speaker in the Rajya Sabha (RS).

The post fell vacant in April last year after the retirement of Janata Dal (United) Member of Parliament Harivansh.

In the meeting, chaired through a video conference by the party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad was asked to rope in opposition leaders to select a joint candidate for the post, sources said.

“The meeting decided that the party will have discussions with other like-minded opposition parties to arrive at a consensus candidate for the post of deputy speaker of Rajya Sabha,” said a party leader.

The post couldn’t be filled during the budget session which ended in March. Since then, no proceedings could take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the post will be filled during the monsoon session that begins on September 14.

The virtual event on September 7 was the first meeting involving the party’s top brass after the stormy working committee meeting held on August 24. The other leaders who attended the meeting included Rahul Gandhi, Anand Sharma, AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Jairam Ramesh, KC Venugopal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Gaurav Gogoi and Ravneet Singh Bittu, to name a few.

Sonia Gandhi is learnt to have said in the meeting that “a better coordination” was needed between Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha MPs and within the UPA allies as well.

On the scrapping of the Question Hour, the party decided to raise the issue, but not too much because the party felt that the government was seemingly adamant on it and it was too late to fight it anyway.

“But the MPs will instead use ‘unstarred’ questions to the best of their ability,” said the leader.

After an uproar over the Centre's decision to do away with the Question Hour during the monsoon session of Parliament, a 30-minute timeframe was granted for MPs to ask only unstarred questions - those to which written answers are given by ministers. The other category, 'starred' questions are those to which answers are desired to be given orally during the Question Hour - the first hour in the House that allows members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to pose questions to the government.

The monsoon session of Parliament is scheduled to begin from September 14 and conclude on October 1. Sonia Gandhi is likely to miss first ten days of the session as she is likely to travel abroad for a health check-up.