By Ria Jain
There has been a major breakthrough in the Winter Session 2025 for Parliament. The two-day-long logjam has finally ended. This logjam was the cause of the opposition’s demand for a debate on the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) that is a part of the electoral rolls. The Lok Sabha speaker, Om Birla, convened an all party meeting that agreed upon this truce. It successfully averted the possibility of another session washout.
Kiren Rijiju, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, brought this new schedule to confirmation as he announced two new discussions. First will be a debate on the 150th Anniversary of the Indian National Song ‘Vande Mataram’, scheduled on December 8th, 2025. His discussion is expected to be initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On December 9th, 2025 will be the much sought-after discussion on Electoral Reforms. Further, the BAC (Business Advisory Committee) has allocated 10 hours per debate but it is open to extension.
Previously the government said that the SIR was an administrative matter of the Election Commission. Although they mitigated the opposition’s demand, as they agreed to this discussion under Electoral Reforms. This comes as a step towards ensuring a platform for the INDIA bloc to raise their allegations of irregularities and ‘vote chori’ related to these roll revisions. However, Rijiju did not stop his blame on the opposition for this logjam, stating that the government will always be a part of discussions with wide scopes.
This schedule was considered a victory by the Congress, as they highlighted the time that has been wasted as a result of deadlock in the previous and current sessions.
It should be noted that political flashpoints still remained the priority. In the Rajya Sabha, there was a walkout by the opposition MPs after Kiren Rijiju stated that the Vande Mataram discussion must be before the debate on electoral reforms. Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge commented that “Vande Mataram comes from us, not from them”, initiating the speaker to state that the national song is for everyone.