New Delhi: The Congress Party, which is all geared up to corner the government in the Budget Session of Parliament, on Tuesday alleged that the NDA regime was trying to saffronise the educational institutions of the country.
Leader of the Congress Party in Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, said that they are going to raise eight to nine important issues, including the controversies surrounding the JNU, Hyderabad University PhD scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide and the FTII.
“We have around eight-nine important issues, which we have put forward before the BJP and the Speaker, especially the issues related to JNU, Hyderabad University and FTII,” Kharge told ANI.
“We want to know about the plan of the government where the BJP and the RSS are trying to saffronise the universities through ABVP. We want to tell the people how this government is trying to push its agenda and the ways which they are adopting to do so,” he added.
Kharge also said that they would be eager to see how the government responds to the issues raised by the Opposition.
“We will also address the Arunachal Pradesh issue. It will be followed by several other issues such as inflation, unemployment. We want to see how the government responds to these issues,” he said.
The government has, however, assured the Opposition that it is ready to discuss each and every issue in the Budget Session.
“We are ready for discussions and debates on all the issues which the Opposition wants to discuss. Notices have been given from the BJP members as well as the members of the Opposition to the Speaker. We are ready to discuss the JNU issue, Jat reservation issue and others as well,” Minister of State (MoS) for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told ANI.
“I think this session of Parliament will work in a peaceful manner. There was a unanimous consensus in the all-party meeting that the Budget Session should be constructive. We are very hopeful that this session would go without many disruptions,” he added.
The Budget Session of Parliament will begin today with President Pranab Mukherjee’s address to the joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
During the session, the Rail Budget will be presented on February 25 and the General Budget on February 29.
The first phase of the Budget Session will come to an end on March 16 while the second phase will start from April 25 and conclude on May 13.
The government has prioritised 32 items for the session including 11 Bills pending in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha besides transacting financial business related to the budget. (ANI)