The Congress parliamentary strategy group meeting, chaired by interim president Sonia Gandhi, began on Tuesday. The meeting is being held ahead of the upcoming monsoon session of the Parliament. Among those in attendence, at the meeting held via video conferencing, are Rahul Gandhi, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kodikunnil Suresh, Gaurav Gogoi, Manish Tewari, and Anand Sharma, among others. According to official bulletins by Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, there will be no question hour and private members’ business in both Houses of Parliament in the monsoon session amid the coronavirus pandemic. The monsoon session of Parliament is scheduled to begin from September 14 and conclude on October 1, without any day off. Both the Houses of Parliament will sit for four hours daily adhering to coronavirus precautionary measures. On the first day of the session on September 14, the Lower House will meet from 9 AM to 1 PM and sitting in the Upper House will be held from 3 PM to 7 PM. On subsequent days, proceedings in Rajya Sabha will be held from 9 AM till 1 PM while the time for Lok Sabha sittings has been fixed from 3 PM to 7 PM. The Lok Sabha Secretariat on Friday clarified that Question Hour has been temporarily done away with to avoid the assembling of a large number of officials in galleries of the house in view of the need for social distancing. The Lok Sabha Secretariat further said that the change is only for the monsoon session and the Question hour will be back in the winter session.
