Cong holds deliberations on Budget Session

With the Budget Session of Parliament less than a week away, Congress top brass including party chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held deliberations today to chalk out a strategy.

This was the first interaction among the senior leaders after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is also the Leader of Lok Sabha, convened an all-party meeting last week to break the logjam in Parliament on the opposition demand for a JPC into the 2G spectrum issue.

Mukherjee had assured the opposition leaders that he would get back to them after consulting the Prime Minister.

The entire Winter Session of Parliament was washed out following the deadlock.

The meeting assumes significance as the government also has to decide on the bills to be brought in the upcoming session as also give finishing touches to the budget 2011-12 which will be presented by Mukherjee on February 28.
Mukherjee will be meeting party leaders at the AICC headquarters tomorrow to seek suggestions from them on the Budget.

Experts say inflation, current account deficit, pressure for lowering down the import duty, providing level playing field to the domestic industries and increasing the government revenue are some of the problems being faced by the government ahead of the budgetary exercise.