Opposition leaders meet ahead of Winter Session of Parliament

Photo: Twitter/ANI

NEW DELHI: Opposition leaders on Thursday met to strategise for the upcoming winter session of Parliament. The Winter Session will be held from December 15 to January 5 with a total of 14 working days.

The Opposition has been claiming that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre delayed the Session fearing key issues would be raised ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had warned the NDA government that it can not escape constitutional accountability by "locking the temple of democracy".

"The Modi government in its arrogance has cast a dark shadow on India's Parliamentary democracy by sabotaging the Winter Session of Parliament on flimsy grounds. The government is mistaken if it thinks that by locking the temple of democracy, it will escape constitutional accountability ahead of the assembly elections in Gujarat," she had said. 

Defending the decision, the BJP has maintained that the dates of the session have been altered in view of the elections. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that sessions have been rescheduled several times during election time in the past as well.

"It has been a tradition and it has happened several times that Parliament sessions are rescheduled when an election is happening," the FM had said.

At least 14 new bills are set to be introduced during the session. Thes include a bill to provide Muslim women the right to seek maintenance from the ex-spouse after divorce, one on aiming to end discrimination against the transgenders.

Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill,  Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill, Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016, Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 are some of the other bills that are likely to be tabled in Parliament during the upcoming session.