Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and nine other Opposition leaders would be moving adjournment motions in the Lok Sabha to discuss the Pegasus snooping issue by suspending all other regular business.
Opposition leaders from both the Houses will also meet on Wednesday morning in the office of Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge to chart out the future course of action.
There was, however, consensus among the parties that bills should not be passed in the din.
These points emerged after top Opposition leaders including Mr. Gandhi met on Tuesday evening at the Congress Parliamentary Party office.
Parliament proceedings | Opposition unrelenting on Pegasus, 3 farm laws
Most of them would move adjournment motions as part of the joint effort to corner the government over the snooping allegations.
The government should not view the Opposition as divided, the leaders argued.
Those who attended the meeting included Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Congress) Kanimozhi and T.R. Baalu (DMK), Supriya Sule (NCP), Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena), Hasnain Masoodi (National Conference), N.K. Premachandran (RSP) E.T. Muhammed Basheer (IUML) and Ritesh Pandey among others.
BSP non-committal
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) member, however, didn’t commit himself to moving an adjournment motion.
Trinamool Congress’ leaders were not present at the meet.
An informal group was also formed, with Congress’ chief whip in the Lok Sabha K Suresh being asked to coordinate among the 10 parties.
Sources said the leaders had discussed options including one to petition the President or ask for a debate that entails voting. “But there was no decision on any of them,” said a leader.
Earlier in the day, Opposition leaders from the Rajya Sabha including Mr. Kharge, Deputy Leader Anand Sharma, DMK’s T. Siva, RJD’s Manoj Jha and CPI’s Binoy Viswom addressed a joint press conference.
“There is an inquiry in France, even Israel is conducting a probe, Hungary, Germany...everywhere there is a probe. I don’t understand why our government is trying to hide it,” Mr. Kharge told reporters.
‘Government to blame for logjam’
Blaming the government for the Parliament logjam, Mr. Sharma said, “The government is not interested in a meaningful discussion and debate. It does not believe in its accountability to the people of India through Parliament.”
Mr. Sharma said the Opposition wants to raise farmers’ issues, price rise, state of the economy and the rising unemployment but “the government does not want to give any answers”.
“The entire Opposition is united. Parliament isn’t a forum to pass government Bills without debate and discussion. This is happening because the government is just not ready to discuss urgent public issues like Pegasus and repeal of the black farm laws, despite repeated notices,” Jairam Ramesh (Congress) said on twitter.
