"Govt can't decide which issues we should raise, which we shouldn't": Congress' Karti Chidambaram on Parliament winter session

New Delhi [India], December 1 (ANI): Congress MP Karti Chidambaram on Monday asserted that the government has no authority to dictate what issues the opposition should raise in Parliament, vowing that the opposition will continue to highlight matters of genuine public concern during the winter session of the Parliament.
The Congress MP stated that the opposition will not raise any issue which does not concern the people of the country, noting that the government should "give space" for the opposition to raise key issues, such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, inflation, and security concerns following the terror incident near Delhi's Red Fort.
"It is incumbent upon the government to give space to the opposition to raise issues of concern to us. The government can't decide which issues we should raise and which we shouldn't... We are not going to raise anything that is of no concern to the people of India, be it SIR, the security situation in Delhi, inflation, tariffs, all these issues are of legitimate concern to the people of India, and we will raise them here on the floor," the Congress MP said.
Echoing similar concerns, Congress MP Vijayakumar, alias Vijay Vasanth, said the party has submitted a general motion on the SIR issue, stressing that the process has placed unbearable pressure on Booth Level Officers (BLOs).
Calling the ongoing SIR exercise "totally unfair", Vijayakumar expressed suspicion over its timing, as some states in which the opposition is in power are also under the Election Commission of India's (ECI) list of states where the SIR is currently being conducted.
"We have given our general motion regarding the SIR... In Tamil Nadu, the SIR has been implemented, and the revision has been going on. We just want to draw attention to it because the BLOs are dying... SIR is totally unfair, given what happened in Bihar. When the state election is happening in (Tamil Nadu) in a couple of months, and now the SIR revision is also happening in Tamil Nadu, this is more suspicious," Vijayakumar said.
The Election Commission of India is conducting the second phase of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls across 12 states and Union Territories, with the final voter list scheduled to be published on February 14, 2026.
The first phase of SIR was completed in Bihar in September ahead of the Assembly elections. The exercise covers Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. (ANI)