Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday accused the Modi government of sabotaging the Winter session of Parliament on “flimsy grounds”, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi “lacks the courage to face Parliament”. She was addressing a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in Delhi, NDTV reported.

Sonia, who is set to hand over the party president’s chair to son Rahul Gandhi, was remarking on the government delaying the Winter session, which usually begins in November and runs for a month.

“The Modi-government in its arrogance has cast a dark shadow on India’s parliamentary democracy by sabotaging the Winter session of Parliament on flimsy grounds. (It) is mistaken if it thinks that by locking the temple of democracy, it will escape constitutional accountability ahead of the assembly elections,” she reportedly said, a statement which was soon rebutted by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who said the “Winter session will definitely take place and the government will announce dates soon”.

According to Jaitley, “it has been a tradition and it has happened several times that Parliament sessions are rescheduled when an election is happening”. The PM and other top ministers are busy campaigning for the Gujarat Assembly polls next month.

The government has been accused of avoiding facing the Opposition’s questions on the economic slowdown, demonetisation and GST.