India
This will be a 14-day session, 25th and 26th December will be Christmas holidays.
Updated : Nov 24, 2017, 11:10 AM IST
The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs has decided to hold the Winter Session of Parliament from December 15 to January 5.
"This will be a 14-day session, 25th and 26th December will be Christmas holidays", said parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar on Friday.
"I request political parties to cooperate and make the winter session successful and fruitful. We expect that we will have attendance on all 14 days, including the New Year's day," Kumar said.
The Committee met on Friday in the morning to finalise the schedule and agenda for the Winter Session.
I request political parties to cooperate and make the winter session successful and fruitful. We expect that we will have attendance on all 14 days, including the New Year's day: Ananth Kumar, Parliamentary Affairs Minister
— ANI (@ANI) November 24, 2017
Earlier on Wednesday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that the schedule of the Winter Session and the Assembly Elections won't overlap.
The Opposition, especially the Congress had been attacking the government for delaying the Winter Session.
The Congress party had alleged that in view of the Gujarat Assembly Elections, the Centre is trying to evade a discussion on issues the Opposition want to raise during Winter Session like scams of ministers, Rafale deal, GST and note ban.
The BJP, however, rejected the Congress's tirade as a "chorus of baseless allegations" and insisted that previous governments, including the UPA, had also scheduled sessions after state polls as politicians were busy campaigning.
On Thursday, Sitaram Yechury, the Marxist leader, while speaking at an event also attacked the government for delaying the Winter Session of Parliament.
Yechury accused the government of "playing with parliamentary democracy for the sake of victory in a state assembly election".