Congress braces for a ROUGH winter in Parliament

An escalation in confrontation looms large over the winter session of Parliament -- which is beginning on Tuesday -- with the National Democratic Alliance deciding to target Home Minister P Chidambaram on the 2G issue and boycott him. The Opposition also plans to rake up a spate of issues including price rise and black money.

In a sudden move, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA met on Monday evening and decided not to allow Chidambaram to speak in Parliament, holding him equally responsible for the 2G scam.

They demanded his resignation and asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure his exit from the Council of Ministers.

The decision on Chidambaram would be a repeat of what the Congress did to George Fernandes, who returned to the Cabinet of Atal Behari Vajpayee even when a commission was enquiring into the Tehelka Arms expose issue on the fake arms deals in 2001.

On the opening day of the month-long session on Tuesday, the Left parties are planning to move an adjournment motion on the issue of price rise, to which the NDA has declared support.

Adding to the government's discomfiture, there could be floor coordination between the NDA and the Left, which in turn, has promised its backing for an adjournment motion on black money to be tabled by senior BJP leader L K Advani.

But what has added a tinge of heightened confrontation is the NDA's decision to target Chidambaram. NDA leaders want him to be made an accused in the 2G case, claiming that he was also party to the decision on spectrum allocation as finance minister in UPA-I.

The Congress has attacked the Opposition on its decision against Chidambaram, saying it was part of the NDA's tactics of "destructive disruption" of Parliament.

Dr Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other top Congress leaders have already held a strategy session.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has expressed the government's readiness to discuss any issue and appealed to the Opposition to cooperate with the government in the passage of important legislations, including the Lokpal Bill.

The last monsoon session had witnessed several disruptions on a range of issues including Lokpal Bill and 2G scam, while the winter session of last year was a complete washout on the demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G issue.