With the first day of the monsoon session of Parliament washed out due to repeated adjournments over various issues including inflation, farm laws and Pegasus snooping row, the second day of the session appears to going the same way. Amid an uproar by the opposition MPs in both the houses, the Lok Sabha has been adjourned till 2pm while the Rajya Sabha has been adjourned till 12 noon.
The Opposition has been demanding a thorough investigation and sacking of Home Minister Amit Shah, while the government maintained it had nothing to do with it. Though IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has made a statement in the Lok Sabha over the issue, the same has failed to placate the opposition benches. Trinamool Congress MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray has already given a notice in the Rajya Sabha under Rule 267 to discuss the Pegasus ‘snooping’ issue. On Day 2 of the monsoon session, PM Modi-led government is also expected to address opposition parties on the Covid-19 situation in the country and its plan to bring the pandemic under control in a meeting on Tuesday evening. The meeting will be addressed by Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, alongside presentations on the pandemic and how it was managed, an official said. Proposed a day before the monsoon session started, the meeting for opposition leaders is scheduled for 6pm on Tuesday.
The first day of Parliament’s monsoon session saw ruckus over the targetting of prominent leaders, journalists, politicians via Israeli phone hacking software, reported by an international investigative consortium. Union Home Minister Amit Shah yesterday also lashed out at the opposition Congress and international organisations for suggesting that the government was involved in surveillance of phones of politicians, journalists and others, saying it was a “report by disrupters for obstructers” who want to derail India’s development trajectory with their conspiracies.
