Ahead of the winter session of parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hit out at the opposition, accusing it of turning the house into a "warm-up arena" for elections or as an outlet to vent out frustration after defeat.
He urged the opposition parties to put aside the differences and focus on delivering a productive session instead of doing drama.
“There is a lot of place for doing drama; whoever wants to do drama can do it. Yaha drama nahi, delivery honi chahiye (There should delivery here, no drama),” he said.
The prime minister said the opposition still appears ‘unsettled’ due to their defeat in the recent assembly elections in Bihar, where the NDA returned to power, winning more than 200 seats.
"The opposition should raise strong, relevant issues in Parliament. They should come out of being upset (from their election defeat) and participate. I thought that it has been a long time since Bihar elections, so they would have composed themselves, but yesterday it seemed that defeat had clearly affected them," he said.
The winter session, which began on Monday, is expected to be a stormy affair with the opposition set to corner the Modi government over a range of issues, including the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Delhi car blast and worsening air pollution in the national capital.
The winter session is set to have 15 sittings across 19 days. Private Members' Bills are set to be taken for consideration on December 5 and 19, and Private Members' resolutions on December 12.
The government has listed a total of 13 Bills for consideration during the session, many of which have not been examined by a Standing Committee.