Monsoon Session begins today: Govt, Oppn brace for showdown over Ram Mandir donation, NEET protests, CJP march

The Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning today is set to witness the Centre and the Opposition locking horns on several contentious issues.

Opposition is all set to corner the government on host of issues including the Ram temple donation theft row, political defections, students’ protests on CBSE-NEET, ethanol-blended fuel, among others.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give the routine address to media at Hans Dwar, Parliament House, ahead of the commencement of the Monsoon Session that is scheduled to stretch till August 13.

The government’s agenda did not include the re-introduction of the delimitation bill that it failed to pass in April due to a lack of numbers. Some reports suggested, the government may bring a revised bill later in the session.

The Centre is expected to table the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 and the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, in the Lok Sabha. In the Rajya Sabha, the government has listed a bill to make any insult or obstruction to the singing of the National Song ‘Vande Mataram’ a punishable offence for introduction in the Lok Sabha during the Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning on Monday, 20 July.

The all-party meeting on Sunday saw high drama at the beginning over the participation of a rebel group of Trinamool Congress MPs with a brief walkout by anti-BJP parties, as they insisted on discussions on issues like donation theft at Ram Mandir, education sector issues, E20 and defections engineered by the ruling party among others

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who chaired the meeting, appealed for cooperation from all parties in the smooth functioning of Parliament, as the government listed out the eight legislative agenda.

At Sunday’s all party meeting, Congress, Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress among others raised the Ram Temple donation theft, according to reports. Wangchuk’s hunger strike was also highlighted by almost every Opposition leader with CPI(M)’s John Brittas saying that the government is facing a “tremendous credibility crisis”.

Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju said on Sunday that Legislative Business for the ensuing Monsoon Session has already been published in Bulletin Part-II by both the Secretariats of Parliament on July 16. The Session will provide a total of 19 sittings spread over a period of 25 days.

Opposition parties staged a symbolic walkout from the all-party meeting convened by the Centre, protesting Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju's invitation to the National Citizens Party of India (NCPI) to participate in the meeting. They later returned to take part in the discussions after a few minutes.

This came as the Lok Sabha Speaker has allowed separate seating for the 20 rebel TMC MPs who announced a merger with the NCPI.

Rijiju said that the walkout staged by the opposition leaders should not be seen as a boycott, as it was symbolic in nature. "It should not be viewed as a boycott of the entire day's proceedings; it was symbolic," he told reporters after the meeting.

(With agency inputs)

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