Modi Cabinet meets today to decide over special Parliament session

The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs will meet today to take a call on convening a special session of Parliament to push for the passage of the GST Bill. There is a speculation that the government may call a short special session of both Houses of Parliament to pass the GST Bill, if it is not passed today, government sources said.

The CCPA meeting is also significant as the land ordinance issued for the third time last month will expire on August 31 and if the government wants to re-issue it for a record fourth time to "maintain continuity", one of the Houses will have to be prorogued to keep the ordinance alive as was done after the Budget Session earlier, they said.

NDA floor leaders from both Houses are also likely to meet today, the last day of the Monsoon session, to discuss their strategy to clear important pending legislative business including the GST bill. Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has convened the meeting. The NDA floor leaders will discuss the strategy of the government for today as well as the future course of action, sources in NDA said.

The ruling BJP on Wednesday attacked the Congress in the Lok Sabha for the "wrong steps" taken to bring back former IPL chief Lalit Modi and rejected the opposition party's allegations against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Sushma Swaraj countered the allegations concerning her family and denied that her husband Swaraj Kaushal was a lawyer for Lalit Modi in his passport case. She said her daughter Bansuri was a "junior at ninth number in the appearance list (in the passport case)" and "not a single rupee was taken by her".

In her searing attack, Sushma Swaraj, who spoke amid constant sloganeering by Congress members, said she had not helped Lalit Modi but his ailing wife who was to undergo a medical procedure for cancer treatment in Portugal.

Denying any quid pro quo on the Lalit Modi issue, she said the Congress vice president should reflect on his family's history.

"Rahul should ask, why they did the quid pro quo" about Quattrocchi and Anderson.

She claimed Rajiv Gandhi struck a deal with the US government for the release of his "childhood friend Adil Shahryar" who was awarded a 35-year jail in a prison there. The minister said the British government conveyed that Lalit Modi was given travel documents according to appropriate rules.

She said when P. Chidambaram was the finance minister in the UPA government, his wife Nalini Chidambaram was appointed a lawyer by the income tax department.