After Centre's rebuttal to senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, in which it claimed that it was not "traditional" to inform the Opposition about the agenda of a parliament special session or discuss it, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh refuted the statements and said the agenda of every special session or sitting in the past was well known in advance and alleged that it was only the Modi government that "distorts" parliamentary conventions.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh's attack came after Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi accused Gandhi of trying to politicise the functioning of Parliament and create unnecessary controversy. The Congress President wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to point out that no agenda was listed for the upcoming special session of Parliament. She also proposed that nine issues, including violence in Manipur and price rise, be listed for discussion during the session.
Parliament Special Session
The Congress posted an exhaustive list of past instances of special sessions on 'X', formerly known as Twitter. Jairam Ramesh said, "How much will you mislead Joshi-avare? On each and every occasion of a Special Session/Sitting, the agenda was well known in advance."
On June 30, 2017, a Joint Special Session in the Central Hall was held at midnight to roll out the GST.
"Earlier, there were two instances where the Upper House met for a Special Session when the Lok Sabha was under dissolution: Special Session (158th Session) was held for two days starting on June 3, 1991 for approval of the President's Rule in Haryana, under the proviso to Article 356(3). Special Session of Rajya Sabha was held in February 1977 for two days for the extension of the President's Rule in Tamil Nadu and Nagaland under the second proviso to Article 356(4)."
He also listed instances of Special Sittings such as the one in Central Hall forenoon on 26 November, 2019 commemorating 70th anniversary of Constitution amidst then ongoing winter session.
This year, the special session of Parliament will be held from September 18 to 22. However, the agenda is still unknown.
