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Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat will lead the Congress's campaign in the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state. While he will virtually be the Congress's face, the party will not officially declare him as the Chief Ministerial candidate. A decision on the Chief Minister, if the party is voted to power, will be taken by Congress president Sonia Gandhi after the elections.

The decision was taken at a meeting senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had with Rawat and senior Congress leaders from the state, including Uttarakhand chief Ganesh Godiyal, CLP leader Pritam Singh, former state Congress chief Kishore Upadhyay, Yashpal Arya and Rajya Sabha MP Pradeep Tamta.

In the 17th Lok Sabha, only one in eight or 13 per cent of bills passed were referred to any committees--- lowest in the last fifteen years. 

A few of the most significant Bills: the Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, was discussed for a total of four minutes before being passed in the Lok Sabha and for eight minutes in the Rajya Sabha. Similarly, The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which links Aadhaar numbers with voter cards, was passed in the Lok Sabha after 26 minutes of discussion.

Until now, the 17th Lok Sabha has passed 35 per cent of bills in less than 30 minutes. On average, Lok Sabha discussed a bill for over two and a half hours before passing it, and Rajya Sabha for two hours. Lok Sabha spent nearly five hours discussing and passing the second supplementary budget (8.6 per cent of the 2021-22 budget estimate), according to PRS, a non-profit legislative research organisation.

A 3-day 'Dharam Sansad' held in Haridwar by controversial religious leader Yati Narsinghanand called for a “war against Muslims” and urged “Hindus to take up weapons” to ensure a Muslim “didn't become the Prime Minister in 2029”, with one of the speakers warning he would have “emptied all six bullets” in a revolver into ex-PM Manmohan Singh. Ex-Delhi BJP spokesperson Ashwini Upadhyay was among those present at the meeting, held from December 17 to 19, and presented Narsinghanand a copy of the Constitution, in saffron colour.

The speeches became public only Wednesday as it was a closed-door event. Upadhyay told The Indian Express: “It was a three-day event and I was there for one day, during which I was on the stage for around 30 minutes and talked about the Constitution. What others said before and after me, I am not responsible for it.”

Former Karnataka chief minister and Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah has termed the anti-conversion Bill passed by the Karnataka Assembly on Thursday as "anti-Constitution and anti-human being" and `RSS agenda`, to which the ruling BJP countered Congress that the draft of a bill on similar lines had been prepared in 2016 by the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah.

Amid the ruckus by the Opposition, Karnataka Legislative Assembly passed the Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021 or anti-conversion bill.

In the assembly, JC Madhuswamy, State Law and Parliamentary Affairs minister placed on the record that this bill was actually initiated by the Siddaramaiah-led government in 2016.

Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die on Wednesday, a day ahead of schedule.

The Winter Session, which began on November 29, saw a deadlock between the Opposition and the government in the Rajya Sabha over the suspension of a dozen MPs due to alleged unruly behaviour during the previous Monsoon Session. The suspended MPs demonstrated in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament complex every day, with support from Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and other MPs.

On Tuesday, the Lok Sabha saw a heated discussion on the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which seeks to raise the age of legal marriage for women from 18 to 21. Members of the Congress and other Opposition parties opposed the Bill and questioned the "haste" with which it had been brought to the House. Introduced by Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani, the Bill, which proposed amendments to the 2006 law, was sent to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for further discussion.