Congress to Corner PM on Pahalgam

New Delhi: The Congress is gearing up to take on the government in the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament. The Parliament strategy committee of the Congress under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi met in the national capital on Tuesday. Apart from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, other senior leaders of the party attended the strategy meeting. Senior leaders Shashi Tharoor, Gaurav Gogoi and Manickam Tagore were not present, as they were travelling.

The Congress plans to corner the government on the terror attack in Pahalgam and relations with other foreign countries. The main issues will include voter list revision in Bihar, statehood in Jammu and Kashmir, the Air India Ahmedabad plane crash and rising atrocities against women.

Briefing the media after the meeting, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tewari said, “Our first priority is to demand answers on the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. Why is the US President repeatedly making the same claim? Why did he say that he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan?”

Mr Tewari further added: “Democracy is murdered in Haryana and Maharashtra. Now what the Election Commission is doing in Bihar is a threat upon democracy. We are going to raise this issue as well. When will the Centre restore statehood in J&K? Women's safety, farmers' distress, the plane crash incident, and the train derailment are big concerns for us. We are going to raise it in Parliament.”

On the impeachment issue of Justice Yashwant Verma, the Congress will discuss with the INDIA bloc allies and see the action of the government.

With the Lok Sabha reportedly set to introduce a new multimedia device-based attendance system for members from the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament, Congress' whip in the Lower House Manickam Tagore on Tuesday claimed the system is "flawed". He asked why the Prime Minister and the Union ministers are exempted when the move is aimed at ensuring accountability. The Leaders of the Opposition, as a practice, are not required to sign in their attendance.

In a post on X, Mr Tagore said the new multimedia device for marking attendance from Lok Sabha seats will be rolled out this Monsoon Session, but "we already saw it fail during the Waqf vote -- where the system didn't function reliably".