Going to people on demonetisation next move of Congress: MP

After complete washout of the winter session of Parliament amid chaos and adjournments over demonetisation and AgustaWestland chopper deal, the way forward for the Congress is to reach out and talk to people directly, said a party MP

“Hitting the road can help us convey directly to the masses the ‘ill-effects’ of the whole exercise to ban high-denomination notes,” the MP said requesting anonymity.

“Now we will take our protests to the streets. We’ll go to the people, talk to them, convince them. Farmers are the most vulnerable lot in this country now,” he said.

“Couple of days back, Rahul Gandhiji convened a meeting of all the Congress MPs. We discussed the next strategy after the Parliament session. He listened to all of us,”

“I think it has been decided to go to all the states across the country. We will go to the people at the ground level,” she added.

Rahul Gandhi had earlier said that he wanted to expose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal complicity in a corruption case, but “a terrified government” didn’t let him speak in Parliament.

Meanwhile, reacting to the session washout, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said: “It is very sad and the politics of obstruction in parliamentary democracy has been enunciated by the one of the top politicians, who has through the demonetisation process destroyed the economy of India.”

“Running of Parliament is the responsibility of the government and they have failed in ensuring that. On the contrary, it is for the first time ever that treasury benches have disrupted and not allowed the house to function,” he added.

Both houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die on Friday as the winter session, which began on November 16, ended in a complete washout.

The Chairs of both houses made it a point to express their displeasure at this, as no significant business could be transacted during the 21 sittings.

The Lok Sabha could transact just 17.39 per cent of its scheduled business in the 19 hours that it worked, while the Rajya Sabha transacted 20.61 per cent of the listed business in its 22 working hours.

The Lok Sabha lost 92 working hours, while the upper House lost more than 86 hours to disruptions and repeated adjournments, mainly over demonetisation, and to issues such as the AgustaWestland chopper deal and farmers’ distress.

When asked when will Gadhi make those revelations, Sibal said: “That’s for him to decide.”

On the question that the opposition parties were not united when they went to meet the President on the issue of demonetisation, Sibal said: “On this (demonetization) issue, the Congress party is fully united with everybody in the opposition. We are all together in this.”

“We are going to voice our concerns together. There is no question of backing out by any party on demonetisation or issues and problems faced by the common man owing to faulty implementation of demonetisation,” said Sibal.