Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Saturday said the Lok Sabha poll mandate is a "decisive rejection" of the politics of divisiveness and hate, and stressed that the INDIA bloc must continue functioning cohesively both inside and outside Parliament.
In a letter to Dhankhar, Ramesh said sending the Bill to the joint committee of both Houses means "devaluation and denigration" of the status and functions of the standing committee.
Former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique, who was shot dead in Mumbai, was a popular figure in Bollywood circles and had earned praise for supplying life-saving medicines to patients during the Covid pandemic.
With the all-party meetings called by Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla producing no breakthrough to end the deadlock in Parliament, Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Pralhad Joshi accused opposition parties of repeatedly 'insulting' Dhankhar.
Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar sought views of leaders of various political parties on ways to curb disruptions in the House at a meeting held on Sunday on the eve of the start of the second phase of the Budget session.
Political sources say Modi is 'keen' on getting the NCP (SP) over to the Mahayuti to counter Eknath Shinde's 'demands' and to act as a cushion against his present allies, Nitish Kumar and N Chandrababu Naidu, 'in case their relationship became untenable'.
"Before the BJP came into existence, its forerunners Jan Sangh and RSS had opposed Babasaheb while the Constitution was being adopted," Prakash Ambedkar, who heads Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, told reporters in Pune.
Parliamentary proceedings were disrupted for the third consecutive day in the Winter Session as opposition parties continued their protests over the Adani issue and violence in Manipur and Sambhal. Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned within minutes of convening, despite appeals from the Chair to engage in productive dialogue and refrain from disruption. The opposition members raised slogans demanding action against the perpetrators of violence in Sambhal, and sought discussions on allegations of irregularities against the Adani Group and the violence in Manipur.
'Gyanendra back on the throne would be bad news for the Nepali people. He may not have learnt from his experience, but we have.'
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said as chairperson of a parliamentary committee, he was not consulted at all over the recent appointments of personnel attached with committees under the ambit of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat.
The committee has given its recommendations to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who will take necessary action, the sources pointed out.
The parliamentary panel on information technology will question government officials on allegations relating to suspected phone tapping of politicians, journalists and others using Pegasus spyware, the committee chairman and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday, and asserted that it is the "most important issue" for many members.
The increased numbers of the Opposition bloc would mean that their MPs are likely to head several more panels than the four that they did by the end of the term of the 17th Lok Sabha.
Buch, under a cloud over allegations of conflict of interest levelled by United States-based short-seller Hindenburg, was asked to appear before the PAC, which is reviewing the performance of the market regulator.
Since it was formed 58 years ago, Haryana has had Jat chief ministers for 33 of those.
The BJP said Gandhi should explain why the Congress-led government in office before 2014 at the Centre had given land parcels to the Adani group.
Addressing a joint press conference of opposition leaders at the Constitution Club after a 'Tiranga March' from Parliament House to Vijay Chowk, he said the government's intention was to get the Budget Session washed out.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is expected to name the committee's chairperson soon.
The issues listed by Gandhi include Centre-state relations, rise in cases of communal tension, border transgressions by China and the demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to investigate the transactions of the Adani business group in light of several revelations.
"The situation has become irretrievable", Azad, 73, said in his parting shot to Sonia Gandhi, whose trusted confidante he remained right from the time of Sitaram Kesri's unceremonious exit as the party's chief in 2000.
Much drama is likely to continue in the coming year, within the Sangh Parivar as well as involving the Opposition parties and, of course the BJP's allies, predicts Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday as the Monsoon Session of Parliament gets underway next week with the united opposition set to corner the National Democratic Alliance government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case and railway safety.
The meeting of the Congress Parliamentary strategy group was held at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi.
This will be the first time that the Congress, since its ouster from power in 2014, will get the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. It failed to get the position in the past 10 years as its tally was below the requisite 10 per cent of total seats in the House, both in 2014 and 2019.
on Thursday adjourned sine die, ending the four-week-long second leg of the Budget session, during which treasury and opposition members locked horns over Rahul Gandhi's 'democracy' remark and the Adani issue.
Ramesh, however, said it was too early to talk about all this right now as the Congress' first priority was the upcoming elections in Karnataka and the string of state polls this year.
Kharge's outreach is part of the Congress' efforts to bring several like-minded parties together on a common platform in their fight against the BJP.
Senior Congress leaders admit that the JPC issue has boomeranged against the party, reports Renu Mittal.
Lawyers have pointed out that the new laws increase police powers by extending the maximum limit of police custody from 15 days to 60 days or 90 days.
The meeting lasted for nearly two hours, sources said.
The KPCC made this decision simultaneously as Sarin announced a press conference in Palakkad, declaring his intention to work with the Left Democratic Front moving forward.
The Samajwadi Party and Congress have announced that they will contest together under the INDIA bloc.
The letter comes after a report by the London-based Financial Times, citing documents from George Soros-backed Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), alluded to a "fraud" by the Adani Group by selling low-grade coal as high-value fuel in 2013.
Right to apprenticeship, legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a nation-wide caste census and scrapping of Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on Friday.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'At no point did Kamal Nath and Digvijaya indicate that the Opposition bloc was formed only to fight the Lok Sabha polls.'
Upset with the Congress for not conceding any seat for the Samajwadi Party in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday hinted that the Congress could get the same treatment from his party in Uttar Pradesh.
Slamming the leakage of the draft Joint Parliamentary Committee report on 2G scam as a "gross breach of Parliamentary propriety", the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said its contents appeared like Congress documents where attempts have been made to save its leaders including the Prime Minister.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday accused the Modi government of having failed the people of the country in handling the pandemic and demanded that an all-party meeting be convened immediately on the Covid-19 situation.
The prolonged delay over electing J P Nadda's successor possibly stems from the RSS leadership wanting a person who is at least equidistant from the Sangh as well as the Modi/BJP edifice, observes BJP-RSS watcher Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances