The opposition has agreed to allow normal operation as it wants to raise major issues during the budget debate, including a trade deal. Photo: AICC via ANI
The Congress party is likely to step up its push against the Narendra Modi government over the India-US trade deal, with Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi likely to focus on it when he attends the Union Budget debate on Wednesday (February 11, 2026).
The Lok Sabha, which has been paralyzed since February 2, began functioning on Tuesday (February 10, 2026) after the opposition moved a motion for a resolution against Speaker Om Birla for conducting the proceedings in a “partisan” manner.
Also Read: Update on Day 10 of Parliament’s Budget Session
Before moving the petition, senior opposition leaders, including Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP), KC Venugopal and Gaurav Gogoi of the Congress, Abhishek Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress and TR Baalu of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), met Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju but failed to end the deadlock.
The opposition has agreed to allow normal operation as it wants to raise major issues during the budget debate, including a trade deal.
Earlier in the day, Mr Gandhi pointed to a placard that opposition MPs carried near Makar Dwar Parliament during their protest, which read “Narender’s surrender”.
“That’s what happened,” he said in the Indo-US trade deal.
In a statement posted on his X handle, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the trade deal sacrificed India’s strategic national interests and exposed the betrayal of the Modi government.
“The fine print of the Indo-US trade deal has revealed how Prime Minister Modi has stalled India’s national interests,” Mr Kharge claimed, calling it a “trapped capitulation”.
The truth about the “trap deal” was now slowly coming out, he said, citing four key objections to the pact.
Referring to the Russian oil issue, he said the White House fact sheet now lists India’s “commitment to stop buying oil from the Russian Federation” as a condition for removing the additional 25% tariff, though the joint statement did not mention it.
Why did the government agree to such “erosion of sovereignty”, Mr Kharge asked, adding that Congress had already marked the US executive order to monitor oil imports into India.
Mr. Kharge alleged that the government had “stabbed the farmer in the back” by opening up agriculture to foreign goods. Legumes were added to the Feb. 9 data summary, although they were absent from the Feb. 6 joint statement, he said. References to the usefulness of red sorghum feed have disappeared, he said, while the import of dried sorghum (DDG) and sorghum could harm dairy farmers and livestock.
“Two million dairy farmers will bear the consequences, but the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh)-Sangh Parivar-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) who are carrying out lynching in the name of the cow are hell-bent on destroying the cattle population of our country,” Mr. Kharge said.
The deal would hurt the garment sector, particularly because of US concessions to Bangladesh, Congress said.
Published – 10 Feb 2026 22:49 IST