Congress may boycott all party meet if centre doesn't reach out

 

New Delhi, Aug 1The Congress party may boycott Monday's all-party meeting being convened to end the parliamentary logjam if the government failed to reach out with concrete proposals, the party indicated on Saturday.

"The government has convened an all-party meeting but has not communicated what their proposition would be. We have conveyed to the government that we want a tangible proposition which will solve the logjam," senior Congress leader Anand Sharma told IANS.

Asked if the Congress will boycott the meeting if the government doesn't reach out to them, he said: "There is no purpose (in attending the meeting) then."

"We are not against attending the meeting, if it is productive," Sharma added.

The Congress leader, who has led the party's charge against the government in the Rajya Sabha, said he hoped the government would reach out to them by Saturday evening.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has also convened a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party on Monday morning just before the all party meeting to frame the party's strategy.

This will be the first meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party's general body in the monsoon session.

A senior Congress leader, who did not want to be named, said the sense in the party was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi needed to reach out to the opposition to end the logjam.

"The prime minister can speak on everything, but not this issue. He has to intervene. Only then things will move forward," he said.

The monsoon session has been a washout till date over the opposition's, chiefly the Congress, demand for resignations of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh over the former IPL chief Lalit Modi and Vyapam scam respectively.

The Congress has been continuing with its protests in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha over the two issues. 

Both Sonia Gandhi and party's vice president Rahul Gandhi have been at the fore front of the aggressive protests by their members.