Monsoon Session: After a week of disruptions, Parliament braces for stormy showdown over Operation Sindoor from Monday
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After a week of disruptions, Parliament's Monsoon Session is now poised to erupt into a high-stakes showdown as the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor take centre stage from July 28, Monday.The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and the Opposition are preparing for fiery debates in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.The first week of the Monsoon session of Parliament was rather a tumultuous one with the surprise resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar as vice president, hours after he had kicked off a row by referring in the Rajya Sabha an opposition-sponsored notice on the impeachment of Justice Yashwant Varma.The opposition made a strong demand for a discussion on Operation Sindoor on the first day of the Monsoon session on Monday last, which was accepted by the government.Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and External Affairs S Jaishankar are likely to participate in the 16-hour debate that is expected to stretch over three days as an aggressive opposition would seek to corner the government over US President Donald Trump's claims that he mediated to avert a nuclear war between India and Pakistan and got them to agree on a ceasefire.India has made it clear that the cessation of firing and military activity targeted at Pakistan was paused after "direct contact" between the directors general of military operations (DGMOs) of both nations, at the instance of Islamabad.The Lok Sabha Secretariat has listed a "special discussion on India's strong, successful and decisive 'Operation Sindoor' in response to the terror attack in Pahalgam" in its agenda for Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to intervene in the discussion.Special discussions, which have been held occasionally in the past on topics like the Constitution to mark the 75th year of its adoption, are not guided by any particular rule of the House.The Rajya Sabha will take up the debate on Operation Sindoor on Tuesday.Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju had said on July 25, after the first week of session ended up a virtual washout, that the Opposition has agreed to the start of a discussion on the twin issues in the Lok Sabha on Monday, followed by Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.The two sides have consented to a marathon 16-hour debate in each House, which invariably stretches longer in practice.Besides its battery of ministers and leaders like Anurag Thakur, Sudhanshu Trivedi and Nishikant Dubey, the ruling NDA is expected to field its members from the seven multi-party delegations that had travelled to over 30 world capitals to present India's case after Operation Sindoor.They include Shrikant Shinde of the Shiv Sena, Sanjay Jha of the JD(U), and Harish Balayogi of the TDP, among others.A big question mark is on whether Shashi Tharoor, who had led the delegation to the US among other countries, will be picked as speaker by the Congress, as the seasoned Lok Sabha member's enthusiastic endorsement of the government's action following the terror attack has soured his ties with his party.Since he led an important delegation, a way may be found for him to speak.Opposition parties have framed their public criticism of the government around the alleged intelligence lapses behind the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, which left 26 civilians killed, and US President Donald Trump's claims of mediating a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly attacked the government's foreign policy, claiming India did not receive international support in Operation Sindoor and has cited Trump's frequent mediation claims to target the ruling alliance.Prime Minister Modi, on his part, has lauded Operation Sindoor, which targeted terror sites in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan after the Pahalgam attack, for meeting 100 per cent of its objectives and proving the mettle of India's indigenous defence weapons and platforms.A bone of contention that remains between the government and the Opposition is the latter's demand for a discussion in Parliament over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar by the Election Commission.A united opposition stalled Parliament in the first week primarily over this issue, as it has claimed that the exercise is aimed at helping the BJP-led alliance in the poll-bound state amid the EC's assertion that it is solely focused on ensuring that only eligible people cast their votes.Rijiju has said that every issue cannot be taken up for discussion in Parliament at once, and the government will take a call on the demand for debate on the SIR later, in line with the rules.
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