New Delhi: The government has convened an all-party meeting on Thursday, ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament.
The Parliamentary Affairs Ministry has sent out invites to the leaders of major political parties that have representatives in both Houses of Parliament for the meet.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan will also host a dinner for the leaders of all parties, PTI reported.
The Winter Session will be held from December 15 to January 5. There would be a total of 14 working days.
Last year, the session began on 16 November and ended on 16 December, with 22 sittings.
The Opposition has claimed that the ruling BJP delayed the Session fearing that it would raise various issues ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls.
The government has, however, maintained that there were precedents of Session dates being changed in view of elections.
On November 20, 2017, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had warned the NDA regime that it can not escape constitutional accountability by "locking the temple of democracy".
Addressing the Congress working committee, she had said that despite PM Narendra Modi`s failure to adhere to the promises made during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he continued making "false promises".
"The Modi government in its arrogance has cast a dark shadow on India`s Parliamentary democracy by sabotaging the Winter Session of Parliament on flimsy grounds. The government is mistaken if it thinks that by locking the temple of democracy, it will escape constitutional accountability ahead of the assembly elections in Gujarat," she had said.
Sonia had added that the Parliament was the forum in which questions should be asked - questions about corruption in high places, conflict of interest of serving ministers and dubious defence deals.
On the other hand, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had back at Sonia and had said that the rescheduling of Parliament Sessions has happened several times before during election time.
He had added that the Opposition party had also delayed a Session in 2011 and even earlier because the sittings coincided with election campaigns.
"It has been a tradition and it has happened several times that Parliament sessions are rescheduled when an election is happening," the FM had told reporters.
(With PTI inputs)
