The Congress is hopeful of soon finalising the Lok Sabha poll seat-sharing arrangements with the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) allies Aam Aadmi Party and Trinamool Congress, sources said on Friday, days after the principal opposition party arrived at an understanding with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.
The impending expulsion of Trinamool Congress (TMC) member Mahua Moitra from the Lok Sabha, three bills to replace criminal laws and a proposed law for the appointment of election commissioners are issues set to dominate the Winter Session of Parliament, with the government urging the Opposition to ensure a conducive environment for discussions in the House.
Ramesh also listed several previous occasions when special sessions or special sittings were held and the list of business was known in advance.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi shared moments together, enquiring about each other's health and strategising on opposition unity on the first day of the Bengaluru summit, sources told PTI.
The recent controversy unfolded after West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee had in November advocated the need to give due respect to senior members and rejected the notion that elderly leaders should retire from active politics.
Senior Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh will now occupy front-row seats after their reallocation by the party.
Some of them also flagged a lack of consultation before finalising the reports.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The opposition parties were demanding a division of votes as they had moved a motion to send the Bill to a select committee, which was rejected by voice vote.
The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday.
Some constituents of the alliance have raised concern that the panels, particularly the 14-member coordination committee, are at risk of becoming ineffective, as their decisions have so far not been acted upon.
Whether the age-old cry of kendrer banchana will be able to drown out pangs of Sandeshkhali, the EVM will tell.
In the letter, they said as members of the committee, it is their moral and constitutional responsibility to discuss this matter with utmost urgency and the required sincerity.
Prasun Banerjee and Jawhar Sircar represented TMC in the meeting, which discussed the Opposition strategy on Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Parliament.
"The agenda as published at the moment, is much ado about nothing - all this could have waited till Winter session in November. I am sure the legislative grenades are being kept up their sleeves to be unleashed at the last moment as usual. Parde ke peeche kuch aur hai!" he said.
Soon after the suspension of 33 opposition Lok Sabha MPs, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said all democratic norms have been thrown into the dustbin by this "autocratic" government and it has shown zero accountability towards Parliament.
As many as 14 opposition MPs were suspended from Parliament for the remainder of the winter session for disrupting proceedings, as the Lok Sabha security breach incident snowballed into a major row on Thursday with the government asking the opposition not to "politicise" the "grave national issue" and the Congress, Trinamool Congress and others demanding a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the verdict is a victory of democracy.
Opposition alliance INDIA on Thursday boycotted a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi not making a statement on Manipur violence in Parliament, a senior leader said.
The next meeting of opposition parties will be held in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18, the Congress announced on Monday, and asserted their resolve to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party has been strengthened by the 'Mumbai operations' of the 'BJP washing machine'.
Opposition parties have not been given the chairmanship of any of the four key parliamentary panels including the committee on home affairs and information technology, which were with the Congress, in the latest rejig announced on Tuesday.
The results of the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are also likely to play out during the start of the session.
Gandhi, who is usually flanked by senior party colleagues, was also greeted by both President Droupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Gokhale was taken into custody under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in Ahmedabad where he is lodged in judicial custody in a Gujarat police case.
Congress deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Pramod Tiwari said the first priority should be to hold a comprehensive and detailed discussion on the Manipur situation in Parliament, going by the fact that people have been killed and the chief minister himself has admitted that several such incidents have happened in the state.
Opposition parties on Thursday continued their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over inauguration of the new Parliament building and accused him of being 'megalomaniac' and the government of being 'arrogant'.
From issuing whips to arranging ambulances for their ailing leaders, opposition parties from the newly-formed Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc are making all-out efforts to ensure that they get 100 per cent attendance of their MPs in the Rajya Sabha to give the Bharatiya Janata Party a tough fight on the Delhi services bill next week.
The opposition leaders are expected to meet at Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge's office in the Parliament complex around 10 am, sources said.
While seven of the suspended MPs belonged to the TMC, six were from the DMK, three from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, two from the Communist Party of India-Marxist and one from the Communist Party of India.
The bill seeks to reserve one-third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies.
Leaders of 38 parties have confirmed their participation in a meeting of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to be held in the national capital on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda said.
The government had on Friday directed social media platforms Twitter and YouTube to block links to the documentary titled India: The Modi Question.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi had invited leaders of four political parties for a meeting on Monday morning convened by Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal to discuss and resolve the stalemate over the suspension of MPs.
In the all-party meeting on Tuesday, Opposition parties demanded discussions on price rise, unemployment and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota among other issues, sources said.
Opposition parties on Thursday agreed to jointly raise the issue of allegations of fraud against the Adani Group in Parliament but were yet to agree on the mode of inquiry into the Gujarat-based corporate major.
A video showing the incident involving school teacher, Tripta Tyagi, and the Class 2 boy in Muzaffarnagar has gone viral on social media eliciting strong words from several political parties.
Sources said former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for early passage of the bill in the Lok Sabha during the upcoming session as the same has already been passed by the Rajya Sabha.
The opposition on Tuesday termed as an 'election jumla' the women's reservation bill brought by the government with many leaders raising questions over the proposed legislation, contending it doesn't account for reservation for OBC communities and that it will be effective at the earliest by the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.
The Manipur violence issue rocked both houses of Parliament on the opening day of the Monsoon session on Thursday with opposition members creating uproar, demanding a discussion on the situation in the Northeastern state.
He said the prime minister has received global recognition and India was rising under his leadership.
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