New Delhi: A day before the start of the winter session of Parliament, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has convened an all-party meeting on Thursday.
Later in the day, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan will also hold an all-party meeting and host a dinner for leaders across the political spectrum. The opposition parties have also called a meeting of like-minded parties on Thursday to discuss their floor strategy ahead of the session.
The winter session of Parliament will be held from 15 December to 5 January. The 21-day-long session will have 14 sittings of both houses of Parliament.
This Parliament session is crucial because it commences days before the announcement of results in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
In the upcoming session, the NDA government plans to bring the controversial bill to end the practice of instant triple talaq and also re-introduce a bill to grant constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC).
The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill 2017, or FRDI Bill, which aims to limit the fallout of the failure of institutions like banks, insurance companies, non-banking financial companies, pension funds and stock exchanges, will also be taken up. The FRDI Bill 2017 was tabled in the Lok Sabha in August and was referred to the joint parliamentary committee, which will submit its report in this session.
According to PRS Legislative Research, other bills, including the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2016, The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and the National Bank for Agriculture And Rural Development (Amendment) Bill, 2017, are scheduled to be taken up for discussion in the winter session.
Ahead of dates being announced for the session, the government faced criticism for postponing the session to after the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Last year, a month-long winter session of Parliament was held from 16 November to 16 December and had 22 sittings.
This is a key issue which will be raised by the opposition in the session. However, justifying its decision, the government said that it was also done by governments in the past, including Congress dispensations headed by Indira Gandhi, P.V. Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.
Opposition parties also plan to raise issues like the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), demonetisation, price rise and rural distress.
Outgoing Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September had asked the government to take up the women’s reservation bill in this session.
In the run-up to the session, the government has approved two ordinances on insolvency code and an amendment to the Forest Act.
PTI contributed to this story.