Congress parliamentary strategy group meeting held at Sonia Gandhi's residence

A Congress parliamentary strategy group meeting was held at party interim president Sonia Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence here on Monday morning.

Several Congress leaders including Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ghulam Nabi Azad and KC Venugopal participated in the meeting, which was held before the day's proceedings at the winter session of the Parliament.

"We discussed all matters, especially with respect to Maharashtra. We will raise it in the Parliament today," party leader Gaurav Gogoi told reporters after the meet.

Echoing similar sentiments, Congress leader K Suresh said that the party will disrupt the proceedings in Parliament by raising the issue of Maharashtra political crisis.

 

"We will seriously raise the issue of Maharashtra. We will stall proceedings in both Houses. Government is killing democracy from Arunachal to Goa, now Karnataka and then Maharashtra. We have already discussed with like-minded parties," he said.

On Sunday, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Maharashtra government, state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, his deputy Ajit Pawar and the Centre, and asked for relevant documents and letters of support from MLAs by 10 am on November 25.

At a time when deliberations among Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena on the formation of a non-BJP government in the state had seemingly reached a final stage, the BJP formed the government in a surprise development on Saturday morning when Fadnavis took oath for the second time as the Maharashtra Chief Minister, while Pawar was sworn-in as the Deputy Chief Minister of the state.

The BJP won 105 seats in the 288-member assembly in last month's assembly polls followed by Shiv Sena 56, NCP 54 and Congress 44. Although BJP and Shiv Sena got the mandate to form the government, the two parties parted ways over power-sharing.