Opposition leaders also raised the issue of MPs not being allowed to visit Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of its special status, whereas parliamentarians from Europe have been taken to the state, with Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury describing the EU delegation as 'bhade ke tattu' (hirelings).
Ahmed Patel, K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh will be part of the Rajya Sabha Committee, which will also include Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and party's deputy leader Anand Sharma. Azad and Sharma are signatories to the letter that demanded an overhaul of the Congress party and a new 'full-time and visible' party president.
'This is a fascinating side to Sonia Gandhi, the way she disarms her opponents.'
In the last 75 years, there have been multiple calls for a gender-neutral term for the head of the State and debates over it.
The court noted that no appreciable steps have been taken ever since an order was passed by it on June 13 to deploy central forces in sensitive areas for the poll process.
Amid continuous disruptions by Opposition members, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has convened an all-party meeting on Thursday to discuss better functioning of the Lok Sabha, proceedings of which have been virtually washed out in the monsoon session so far.
The Lok Sabha witnessed a heated debate Friday on an Ethics Committee report recommending Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra's expulsion in the cash-for-query issue, with the Opposition demanding she be allowed to speak in the House, and the government contending her views were heard by the panel.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Chennai on November 2 and is likely to hold a meeting with her Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin to discuss their strategies for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
The fate of 961 candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided by about 12.79 core voters in the fourth phase.
Gaurav Gogoi, T N Prathapan, Dean Kuriakose, Manicka Tagore, Rajmohan Unnithan, Benny Behanan and Gurjeet Singh Aujla are the seven who have been suspended.
The protests came after Speaker Om Birla announced the end of Question Hour at noon as the designated time for it is 11 am to noon. While asking the first supplementary, Gandhi said he wanted to know the list of 50 top wilful defaulters, including funds given and the amount written off by banks but did not get a proper answer in the written reply.
"Everything may look normal in Kashmir. Everything may look normal here. We may be celebrating the victory, although of course some people believe that that victory or that success of 2024 was perhaps only marginal, perhaps a lot more needs to be done," he said.
The committee has given its recommendations to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who will take necessary action, the sources pointed out.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
The former finance minister, who walked out of jail on Wednesday night, joined other Congress MPs voicing their protest against the steep hike in onion prices.
The bench said it was not questioning the credentials of the election commissioners appointed but the procedure.
The Election Commission on Wednesday ruled out any change in the schedule of the West Bengal assembly polls and told the Trinamool Congress that its suggestion to club the last three of the eight phases is "not feasible".
While Defence Minister Rajnath Singh spoke about the consensus, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said there is no need for a separate discussion in Parliament on the Pegasus issue during the budget session.
The Congress on Friday welcomed the statements of opposition leaders condemning Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Lok Sabha and said it was now time for the party to take on the job of building the opposition unity in a "systematic way".
The TMC has won in 34,560 gram panchayat seats, besides leading in 705 seats, according to the SEC as of 11.30 am on Wednesday.
Top leaders of Opposition parties will brainstorm at a meeting in Patna on Friday to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with sources saying that they would look to avoid the prickly leadership question and emphasise on common ground.
A delegation of 21 Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc MPs will pay a two-day visit to Manipur beginning Saturday to assess the ground situation first-hand and then make recommendations to the government and Parliament for a solution to the problems in the violence-hit state.
As soon as the House met at 2 pm, papers were laid on the table and two resolutions adopted amid slogan shouting and protest by Congress members.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday blamed India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's "two major blunders" -- declaring a ceasefire without winning the entire Kashmir and taking the issue to the United Nations -- for the sufferings of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The opposition parties, which have demanded the strictest action including suspension of Bidhuri for his "vile and communal" remarks during a discussion on the success of Chandrayaan-3 in Lok Sabha on Thursday, hit out at the BJP, alleging that it was trying to defend its MP instead of punishing him.
While 39 members of the all-important panel are general members, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state and 13 special invitees.
'If people want to blackmail others to get information or harm things, so why will someone give them information?'
'My primary point was where is the Mamata Banerjee who jumps and reaches out, starts talking directly and starts solving over the heads of the bureaucracy.'
Shah said nobody can stop him from introducing a resolution on Kashmir in Parliament.
The ED officers are conducting raids at 15 places in the state during the day and Sajahan's house is one of them, an officer said.
The results of the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are also likely to play out during the start of the session.
Sonia Gandhi's prime ministerial ambition for her son has been a major factor in the Congress's internal politics since 2004, points out Amulya Ganguli.
A purported video of the incident showing the mob beating the women up mercilessly on Wednesday was shared in the social media by Amit Malviya, the head of BJP's IT cell on Saturday.
From the 'group of 23' leaders, who had written letter to Gandhi seeking Congress' overhaul, Azad and Sharma continue to be regular members of the CWC,
As the Congress vehemently opposed the scrapping of the Constitutional provision that accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir, some party leaders raised voices of dissent and supported the government move.
As the adjournment of Parliament for an indefinite period with the Rajya Sabha also adjourning sine die kickstarts the final countdown for the general elections, Modi said the last five years were a period of "reform, perform and transform" with the country moving towards "big changes" at a fast pace.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has recently written to all opposition parties including the Congress, calling on everyone to come together and put up a united fight against saffron forces.
State Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha on Thursday said that the village council elections will be held on a single day, with the deadline for filing nominations set for June 15. The votes will be counted on July 11.
Modi also reminded Congress of the Emergency, saying it's a blot on the democracy that will never fade.
