Congress ropes in Mallikarjun Kharge to unite Opposition against BJP in Parliament

A meeting of Congress Parliamentary Strategy Group, chaired by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, on Wednesday decided to entrust Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and senior party leader Mallikarjun Kharge the task to talk to Opposition leaders for floor coordination in both the Houses even as the party has indicated that there will be no change in the post of Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha for now.

Scotching speculation of replacing Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury with someone else as the Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha, party sources said he will very much remain in the post at least till the Monsoon Session.

The meeting, attended by Rahul Gandhi, Kharge and others, decided to work out a common strategy with floor leaders of other Opposition parties to highlight the "inept handling of vaccination drive" by the government and its "ill-preparedness for third wave" during the session beginning July 19.

Read: Mandaviya blames states for Covid vaccine mismanagement

Besides the issue of over-all Covid-19 "mismanagement", fuel price, price rise, border issue with China and Rafale will be the other issues on which Congress will target the government.

Meanwhile, ratcheting up his attack, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at the government with a tweet "Jumle hain, vaccine nahin (There is rhetoric, no vaccines)", using the hashtag 'WhereAreVaccines', which was also used by many other Congress leaders.

Going by the Congress' plans to highlight the issue of vaccine shortage in various states, party leader Jairam Ramesh flagged the issue and asked the Modi government to double the vaccine procurement and "allocate to states fairly and transparently". Subtly reaching out to non-NDA parties like BJD, YSRC and TRS, which had frequently bailed out the government in Parliament on a number of occasions, Ramesh said, vaccine shortages are now hampering drives even in states - Odisha, Andhra and Telangana - friendly to Modi government, in addition to states governed by the Opposition.

On the other side, Kharge alleged that the pace of vaccination has declined to nearly 60 percent of what was seen in the week after June 21.