Congress targets Centre over 29-day delay in prorogation of Monsoon Session

The Congress on Friday targeted the Central Government for not proroguing Parliament even 29 days after the Monsoon Session was adjourned sine die, alleging that the unprecedented delay was part of Home Minister Amit Shah’s attempt to buy time and cobble together the two-thirds majority needed in the Lok Sabha for the government’s proposed Constitution Amendment Bill.

Congress general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh said the government had now broken its own 2015 record, when the gap between adjournment sine die and prorogation of the Monsoon Session stretched to 28 days. The normal gap, he pointed out, is three to four days.

“So today the Modi Govt has set a new record bettering its own set in 2015,” Ramesh said, adding that there was still no indication of when the 2026 Monsoon Session would formally end.

The Congress leader linked the delay to the government’s defeat in the Lok Sabha on April 17, when it failed to secure the numbers required for the Constitution Amendment Bill.

Ramesh alleged that Shah had since been working to alter the arithmetic in the House and accused the BJP of engineering splits in three parties that had voted against the legislation in April.

He further alleged that “threats, intimidation and incentives” were being used to persuade other parties that had opposed the Bill to change their position.

“The Union Home Minister does not have the numbers,” Ramesh said, accusing Shah of refusing to accept the parliamentary arithmetic.

The Congress also questioned what the government hoped to achieve by leaving the Monsoon Session formally open, pointing out that it could summon Parliament whenever required.

Ramesh said Shah might believe that prolonging the uncertainty would put the Opposition under pressure, but dismissed the exercise as political “mind games” and “psy-ops”.

The larger battle, however, is over delimitation.

Ramesh questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for not calling an all-party meeting to discuss its delimitation proposals, arguing that an issue capable of reshaping parliamentary representation required the widest possible political consensus.

“Why this secrecy and mystery on a subject that is of profound importance to the very fundamentals of the Indian Republic?” Ramesh asked.

He said Opposition parties had consistently sought an all-party meeting on delimitation since mid-March but the government had yet to convene one.