BJP leaders, ministers deliberate on strategy for Monsoon session: Report

Top BJP leaders and Union ministers, including party president J P Nadda, Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, held a meeting to discuss matters related to the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament and frame the party's strategy to counter the opposition, sources said.

The meeting was held at Union Minister Rajnath Singh's residence, they said.

The Monsoon session of Parliament, which is scheduled to start from July 19, will be the first session after the second wave of COVID-19, which was far more worse than the first. The opposition is expected to rake up this issue and launch a scathing attack on the government.

Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Bhupender Yadav and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and ministers of state Arjun Ram Meghwal and V Muraleedharan, among others, were present in the meeting.

Besides them, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi also attended the meet.

The BJP leaders held wide ranging discussions on the party's floor strategy for the upcoming session and also to ensure the passage of important bills and financial business including Supplementary Demands for Grants, the sources said.

With the opposition being exuberant after the BJP's defeat in the assembly election in West Bengal and planning to raise issues related to the second wave of COVID-19, the BJP wants to further fine tune its strategy so that it can effectively counter the opposition while at the same convincingly put forward its case, they said.

The meeting lasted for more than an hour at Singh's residence who also chairs the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs and is deputy leader of the BJP in Lok Sabha.

Around 17 bills are listed for introduction in Lok Sabha, including and five bills for consideration and passage, and a similar number of bills are expected to be introduced in Rajya Sabha as well.