Winter Session of Parliament to Begin Today; Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, Chit Funds (Amendment) Bill & Other Important Legislation Likely to be Passed

New Delhi, November 18: The winter session of Parliament will begin today. The Opposition is likely to target the Narendra Modi government over the various issues including economic slowdown, unemployment and lockdown in Jammu and Kashmir. This time, it will be 250th session of the Rajya Sabha. The winter session of Parliament will conclude on December 13. There will be 20 sittings of the Upper House. The Parliament session will begin with obituary references to former Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj.

A day ahead of the winter session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the All-Party meeting on Monday. The opposition leader raised concerns over the state of the economy, rising unemployment and detentions in Jammu & Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370. PM Modi assured the Opposition to have a discussion on these issues during the Winter Session of Parliament. The meeting was aimed at creating a consensus to make the winter session more productive.

The Prime Minister on Sunday also said that the government would organise special events and activities to mark the 250th session of the Rajya Sabha. He added that the 250th session would provide an opportunity to highlight the strengths of the Indian Parliament. A total of 35 bills will be taken up for discussion during the session. Farooq Abdullah, P Chidambaram Must be Allowed to Attend Parliament's Winter Session, Demands Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Here are some of the important bills which are scheduled to be passed in this session:

• The Chit Funds (Amendment) Bill, 2019
• The Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Amendment) Bill, 2019
• The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2019
• The National Institute of Design (Amendment) Bill, 2019
• The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019
• The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment), Bill, 2019
• The National Commission for Homoeopathy (NCH) Bill, 2019
• The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill
• The National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management Bill, 2019

Some of the Important bills that will be introduced during this session:

• The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019
• The Pesticides Management Bill, 2019
• The International Financial Services Centres Authority Bill, 2019
• The Arms Act (Amendment) Bill, 2019
• The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019

The Opposition has increased its strength in Parliament as the Shiv Sena walked out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The joint Opposition strength has crossed the 200-mark in Lok Sabha where there is no Leader of Opposition owing to the lack of the numbers required for this purpose in the Lower House. The Shiv Sena has 18 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 3 MPs in the Rajya Sabha.

The Congress has 52 MPs in the Lok Sabha, the DMK 24, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) 22, and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) 22, while the Shiv Sena has become the fifth largest constituent of the Opposition, as per details in the Lok Sabha website.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 18, 2019 09:15 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).