Ahead of parliament monsoon session beginning Monday, 19 July, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has reconstituted the party's Parliament groups for both Houses for effective functioning of the party. Putting all speculations to rest, it was decided that Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury will stay on as the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha.
Gandhi, as Chairman of the Congress Parliamentary party, on 15 July issued a letter that said, "I have decided to reconstitute the following groups to facilitate and ensure effective functioning of our party in both Houses of the Parliament."
In the Lok Sabha, the group has Choudhury, Gaurav Gogoi, Manish Tewari, K Suresh, Manickam Tagore, Shashi Tharoor, and Ravneet Bittu.
In the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh, Ambika Soni, Digvijaya Singh, P Chidambaram, and KC Venugopal will lead the charge against the government.
The letter specified that they will regularly meet during the session and afterwards, whenever required, and Kharge has been authorised to convene joint meetings.
The Congress has decided to raise issues of inflation, fuel price hike, COVID mismanagement, and the border issues with China in the upcoming Monsoon session.
The party's strategy group for Parliament, chaired by Gandhi, met on 14 July and decided that it should raise the Rafale issue after the recent development in France, where a probe in alleged kickbacks has been initiated.
Coordination with other Opposition parties has been entrusted to Rajya Sabha leader Kharge as the party wants a joint Opposition strategy in the house to corner the government.
Chidambaram, addressing the media had said on 13 July: "Congress party will raise the issue of high inflation in the forthcoming session of Parliament and demand a full discussion on the subject as well as substantial relief for the people of India."
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