New Delhi, Jan. 27: The opening day of the “reconvened” session of the Lok Sabha on Thursday might belong to the Opposition.

A fair indication of the Opposition’s aggressive intent was provided today when the Congress released Opposition leader Sonia Gandhi’s letter to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Saturday on the alleged constitutional improprieties committed by the Vajpayee government.

Parliament is to be “reconvened” on January 29 for the vote-on-account to be passed for the railway and general budgets and is to go on till February 5.

Sonia has questioned the propriety of the Vajpayee government’s move not to prorogue the winter session of Parliament in accordance with well-established conventions and appealed to Kalam to take “appropriate steps” to undo the wrong precedent.

The relevant clauses of Article 85 say the President should have prorogued each House soon after they were adjourned sine die when the brief winter session came to a close on December 23. Appropriate recommendations in this regard should have been made by the government.

Another constitutional impropriety committed by the government was to give a go by to the customary presidential address to the joint sitting of both Houses when Parliament meets for its first session at the beginning of a calendar year. Sonia impressed upon the President that this was the explicit mandate of Article 85 of the Constitution.

However, the government chose to extend the winter session by opting to “reconvene” the two Houses. “The action of the government is casual, ad hoc, contrary to constitutional practice and thus suffers from constitutional impropriety. Both the letter and spirit of the Constitution have been violated,” Sonia said in her letter.

While Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee might have found it politically convenient to dissolve the Lok Sabha and go for early polls, this should not have been done at the expense of the constitutionally mandated process, she asserted and sought an explanation from the government.

The leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Manmohan Singh, too, had written an identical letter to the President.

The Congress is likely to confront the government on the floor when the Lok Sabha meets on Thursday and the Rajya Sabha on Friday. With the party not expecting normal business transaction on Thursday, it is not surprising that Sonia has scheduled a visit to Chennai for her first face-to-face talks with her new ally, DMK leader M. Karunanidhi, that day.