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Government bracing for a
stormy monsoon session

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Sunday braced itself for a stormy monsoon session of Parliament commencing on Monday wherein the Opposition is poised to launch an all-out assault for the government's alleged failure to share information on the aborted Agra summit.

"The prime minister and his men, by their sheer ineptitude in media-management, may have sown the germs for further embarrassment to the country. We mean Pakistan's ongoing clamour for third-party mediation on Kashmir and Washington's apparent eagerness to do so," pointed out chief Congress spokesman S Jaipal Reddy.

Asserting that the government had 'failed miserably' in putting across its case', Reddy said it better give a good explanation for its actions because "We will not allow it to go scot-free and there will be hell to pay for."

Referring to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's offer to help solve the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, Reddy said, "Such a state of affairs is wholly undesirable because our party is against any third-party intervention on Kashmir."

"The government's silence in Agra has resulted in this situation," the Congress spokesman asserted.

Senior Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia wanted the government to be 'censured' for its lack of preparation for the Agra summit in sharp contrast to Pakistan, 'which was focused sharply'.

"This is a serious lapse on its (government's) part and it will have to come out with a credible explanation," Scindia asserted.

Scindia, the Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, indicated that 'the prime minister and his government are in for some tough time in Parliament'.

Significantly, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders have adopted a defensive approach to the government's stand during the Agra summit with the party focusing on defending the government.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan on Sunday pointed out that the government went in for an unstructured agenda in keeping with Pakistan President Gen Pervez Mushrraf's insistence that the agenda for the Vajpayee-Musharraf talks be chalked out in Agra itself.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury termed Mahajan's explanation as 'ridiculous'.

"If the government was unsure about the agenda, why didn't it delay the summit? Did it have to go along with Gen Pervez Musharraf on the part about the unstructured agenda? The more likely explanation is that both India and Pakistan were under US pressure to initiate talks," Yechury asserted.

The government's cup of woes seems to spilling over given that the Agra summit is just one major issue among a host of others that the Opposition would be armed with.

The crisis at the Unit Trust of India (UTI), the recent Amarnath massacre, the crisis in the Northeast and the floods in Orissa would mean that the government would have a deluge of contentious issues to deal with.

"This time, the government has been caught in its own trap and has a lot of explaning to do. The monsoon session of Parliament is poised to witness the stalling of both Houses, walk-outs and pandemonium galore. The Opposition will go in for the kill," Yechury said.

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