Centre calls for a special session of parliament from Sept 18-22: What happened during the last special session?

Just over a month after the conclusion of the monsoon session of the Parliament, the Centre has convened a special session for five days from September 18 to 22, fuelling speculations among political circles and the public regarding the agenda of the meeting ahead of five assembly elections scheduled later this year. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to tweet, “Amid Amrit Kaal looking forward to having fruitful discussions and debate in Parliament.” The announcement of a special session has, predictably, evoked surprise and engendered speculations around what might be in the store for the public as the government has its sight fixed on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in May 2024. In 2017, during the first tenure of the Modi government, the Centre had called for a joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha for the passage of the momentous Goods and Services Tax Bill, the biggest indirect tax reform since India’s independence, and one which supplanted all central and state taxes with a single tax. Congress, TMC among opposition parties who had boycotted GST launch special session The opposition political parties in attendance were the Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, Biju Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal. Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was with Congress at the time, commented, “Perhaps for the BJP, 1947, 1972, and 1997 may be of no relevance because they played no role in securing India’s freedom.” Mallikarjun Kharge, then the Congress’s leader in the Lok Sabha, highlighted that the UPA government had passed several significant acts such as the RTI Act, Food Security Act, MGNREGA, and Right to Education Act but never organised such celebrations in the Central Hall.