Two crucial posts in the two Houses of Parliament await announcement by BJP and Congress. Sources said BJP may name Piyush Goyal as the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha while Congress will hold a meeting in the next 48 hours to find a replacement for Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who leads the party in Lok Sabha. Top sources in the Congress have said that Rahul Gandhi might replace Chowdhury.

The monsoon session of Parliament begins on July 19 and both these appointments need to be made soon.

BJP is without a Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha after Thaawarchand Gehlot was appointed as Karnataka Governor. Piyush Goyal, who holds key portfolios in the government, has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2010.

Over the last two years, Piyush Goyal has played an active part in BJP’s efforts in the Rajya Sabha to negotiate with Opposition parties not aligned with Congress and fence-sitters like BJD, AIADMK, YSRCP.

In fact, despite hostilities between BJP and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC, Goyal had struck a working relationship with TMC leaders both inside Parliament and outside.

BJP was also considering the likes of Bhupender Yadav, now a Cabinet minister and a lawyer by profession, for the post. Yadav had earned the sobriquet of “committee man” due to his expertise on parliamentary select committees.

Apart from handling elections in crucial states for BJP as the party’s national general secretary, Yadav has been the legal pointsman on critical matters pertaining to the Election Commission and courts.

Rahul Gandhi may replace Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

Despite strong official denials, top sources in the Congress have said that Rahul Gandhi might replace Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as the leader of the party in Lok Sabha. Chowdhury has been the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha since June 2019.

The names of MP Manish Tewari from Ludhiana, Shashi Tharoor from Kerala, Gaurav Gogoi from Assam, Ravneet Singh Bittu from Punjab and Uttam Kumar Reddy from Telangana were doing the rounds for the post.

Manish Tewari has held crucial portfolios in the UPA government under then prime minister Manmohan Singh. What weighed in Tewari’s favour is his fluency in Hindi and English. After Mallikarjun Kharge lost his Lok Sabha seat in 2019, Congress has been looking for a strong orator in Hindi.

Manish Tewari, along with Tharoor, was one of the 23 Congress leaders who signed a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi last year seeking clarity on leadership issues. Manish Tewari is also said to be in the race for the post of Congress Punjab unit president.

Sources claimed former Congress president Rahul Gandhi would not take up the position. However, a senior Congress leader, preferring anonymity, said Rahul Gandhi was still in the reckoning.

Congress realises that the Modi government would be on a sticky wicket during the monsoon session due to the French probe into the Rafale jet deal, despair and deaths due to the Covid-19 second wave, faltering vaccination drive, fuel price hike, inflation, job losses and economic distress. These offer a great opportunity for Rahul Gandhi to carve a “pro-people image among the voters”.

In the monsoon session, Congress will demand an investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the Rafale deal. The Rafale issue, which seemed to have lost traction after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, is back on the Congress’ agenda after a French court ordered an investigation into alleged corruption and favouritism in the Rs 59,000 crore deal.

Another senior Congress leader said, “This is a big opportunity for Rahul Gandhi to position himself against PM Modi. If he manages to push the government during this session, it could pave the way for his more acceptable return to the post of Congress president.”

The leader said Rahul Gandhi becoming the virtual Leader of the Opposition would also help the party regain the position of the principal challenger to BJP. During the last two years, parties like the TMC have been attempting to grab that space.

The need to find a leader for Congress in Lok Sabha started due to the failure of Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to emphatically establish himself as the key voice of the party in the House.

Chowdhury is also the president of the Congress unit in West Bengal, a state where the party was completely wiped out in the recent Assembly election. Chowdhury’s detractors have been demanding that the one-man-one-post rule should be employed in his case.

A senior Congress Lok Sabha MP said, “The party failed to make a mark under Chowdhury. He never piloted any meetings of the Opposition parties due to his rivalry with Trinamool Congress.”

“Rahul Gandhi had called a meeting of Opposition party leaders at Parliament building office. TMC skipped the meeting. Congress organised a protest at the Gandhi statue. Chowdhury didn’t ensure the presence of TMC,” another senior leader said.

While many Congress leaders favoured an alliance with the TMC in Bengal, Chowdhury, who has been an arch rival of Mamata Banerjee, had shot down the idea.