Congress demands all-party meet, early Parliament session after Delhi blast

The Congress on Thursday demanded an immediate all-party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged that Parliament’s Winter Session be advanced to debate the Delhi blast. The party questioned the government’s “new normal doctrine” and sought accountability

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately chair an all-party meeting in the aftermath of the Delhi blast and asked whether the “new normal doctrine” defined by the government following the Pahalgam attack of treating any future terror strike as an ‘act of war’ stands.

The opposition party also demanded that the Winter Session of Parliament, scheduled to start on December 1, be advanced so that there could be a debate on the incident.

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Congress’s media and publicity department head, Pawan Khera, called for fixing accountability and asserted that someone in the government should take responsibility, recalling that the then home minister Shivraj Patil had resigned following the Mumbai terror attack under the UPA.

“The surprising thing is that after 48 hours, it was the Cabinet that announced that this was a terror attack,” Khera said at a press conference. Despite intelligence agencies being there and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval keeping a close watch, how did 2,900 kg of explosive reach Faridabad, he asked.

“In a car, there were so many explosives near the Red Fort… Who is taking responsibility for this, and is accountability being fixed?” Khera further asked. “We always stood with the government when a terror attack happened and will do so in the future. But it is our duty to ask questions as to whose failure it is and who will take responsibility for it,” he said.

The Congress demands that an all-party meeting under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister be called immediately, he said. “We also demand that the Parliament session be advanced as this is a serious challenge and must be discussed in Parliament,” Khera said.

After Pahalgam and following Operation Sindoor, the government had come up with a new normal doctrine that any terror attack will be considered an act of war, Khera said, and asked if that stands.

The government on Wednesday termed the blast near the Red Fort in which 13 people were killed as a “terrorist incident”. A meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Modi upon his return from Bhutan, directed investigating agencies to deal with the case with “utmost urgency and professionalism” to bring the perpetrators and their sponsors to justice without delay.

The meeting reaffirmed India’s unwavering commitment to a policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.