PM Narendra Modi at a meeting of NDA leaders at Parliament (Press Trust of India photo)
A washed-out monsoon session behind it, the Modi government will now unleash an offensive against the Opposition, accusing it of wasting crores and impeding the country's economic growth.
Union ministers and other leaders of the ruling NDA have been instructed to take this message to the public through press conferences and protests. They will specifically target the Lok Sabha segments that elected 44 Congress lawmakers and nine of the Left.
Explaining what he called the "reason for the washout", Union minister Rajyavardhan Rathore said the Congress was reasoning that the NDA ministers also did the same in the last UPA government.
"There's a big difference... They wanted to block our progress in whatever way they could," he said, adding how due to their protests, the government was unable to push through flagship Goods and Services Tax bill or GST bill.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for the campaign yesterday, comparing the Congress' unrelenting protests to disrupt Parliament through the session with the assault on democracy during the Emergency.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will hold a press conference at National Media Centre in Delhi today, while other prominent ministers like Piyush Goel and Nirmala Sitharaman will also hold pressers in different parts of the country.
The Congress -- which through its protests demanding the resignation of three top BJP leaders -- ensured that no significant work was transacted in the monsoon session, has also planned its own campaign with a series of media conferences.
Hitting back, its senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the BJP has proved that it does not believe in democracy or consensus. "Inside the house or outside, they don't care about suggestion or discussion."
Sources say the government could now call a special five-day session of Parliament starting August 31 in an attempt to push through the GST Bill, which creates a national sales tax to subsume a complicated network of central and state levies.