Congress favours fielding joint opposition candidate for post of deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha

NEW DELHI : Congress on Tuesday decided to push for the opposition to put up a joint candidate for the post of deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha and is considering the candidature of DMK MP Tiruchi Siva, if all allies are on board.
Sources said that at the meeting of Congress’s parliamentary strategy group, chaired by party chief Sonia Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh also backed a proposal to field an opposition candidate and said they should put up a “serious fight” if possible.
The strategy group meeting was attended by 10 MPs apart from party chief Sonia Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh. Former chief Rahul Gandhi, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma, Gaurav Gogoi, Jairam Ramesh, K Suresh, Manickam Tagore, Ravneet Bittu and Manish Tewari were also in attendance.
While Sonia Gandhi is unlikely to attend Parliament as she is likely to travel abroad for treatment, sources said former finance minister P Chidambaram may also not be present. Sources said Rahul spoke about PM Modi’s “weak leadership” and said he had made India “vulnerable” with coronavirus, the border situation as well as the economy, each spiralling out of control. Rahul also said that the “PM was unable to deal with these problems”, emphasising the need to corner the government aggressively on the issue of coronavirus mismanagement, the plight of migrant workers, economy, lockdown, GST and GDP and the worsening border situation in Leh. At this point, according to sources, Anand Sharma is understood to have said he agreed with Rahul Gandhi, arguing that the situation had not been so bad since 1962. Sharma is a key member of the letter writers group.
While Sharma and Manish Tewari said the party must be cautious about “not being nationalist” and preventing its position on the LAC issue from being seen to lower the morale of soldiers, Singh backed Rahul and said Modi government made India “vulnerable” on multiple counts, adding that this is the first time that both Pakistan and China have turned against India. Singh also commented on the government’s duplicitous stand on the China issue while speaking in Moscow and at home in India.
The Congress parliament strategy group also decided that it would demand the restoration of Question Hour and strongly oppose four ordinances, including the one granting exemption to PM Cares Fund on tax, two farm ordinances and one each on essential commodities and banking regulations out of the 11 that are set to be tabled in Parliament.