CCPA to take call on Opposition's demand for special session of Parliament: Meghwal

New Delhi: Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Wednesday said the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs will take a call on the demand of several opposition parties, including the Congress, for a special session of Parliament over the Pahalgam terror attack.

Meghwal, who is a state minister in the parliamentary affairs department and also holds the independent charge in the law ministry, told reporters that the decision of the CCPA, which takes a call on convening the session, will be conveyed once it decides.

The Union Cabinet is meeting on Wednesday.

Several opposition leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress, have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking a session of Parliament to present a collective resolve following the April 22 terror strike which left 26 people, mostly tourists, killed.

At the press conference, Meghwal slammed Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav over a picture showing one-half each of B R Ambedkar's and the former Yadav's face.

The BJP leader said the picture is an insult to Ambedkar, seen to be the architect of the Constitution and an icon, especially among Dalits.

He said Yadav "lived in delusion" if he thought the picture would fetch him votes of Dalits and noted that the SP is an ally of the Congress, which ensured Ambedkar's defeats in two elections.

The Congress also strongly opposed the reservation to the Other Backward Classes when Rajiv Gandhi was the leader of the opposition, he said.

Yadav was "sitting in the lap of the Congress" and when he was chief minister, engineers from the Scheduled Castes were demoted in large numbers in Uttar Pradesh, while a Samajwadi Party MP had torn a bill advocating reservation in promotions for the community, Meghwal said.

Meghwal also said that the Congress's directive to its leaders to toe the party line on the Pahalgam terror attack was "double-speak".

Following the controversial statements of several party functionaries, the Congress on Tuesday asked its leaders not to speak out of order and stick to the party line on the terror attack or face disciplinary action.