While a tweet from a close aide of the Gandhi's and the Chief Whip of the party in Rajya Sabha, Jairam Ramesh took a dig on Azad for accepting the award, Congress stalwarts from the G-23 group have congratulated him for the 'well-deserved' award.
The 71-year-old Congress leader shared the information on Twitter and asked those who came in contact with him in the recent past to follow protocols on self-quarantine and testing.
Months after exiting the decades-long association with the Congress party, Azad said that he was not against its policy of secularism, but its weak party system.
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday resigned from all party positions, including its primary membership, delivering another blow to the embattled party that has seen a series of leaders leave it.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was on Monday named as the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, while Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad was declared the Leader of the Opposition.
The Opposition party also attacked Azad, saying "Mr. GNA himself gives new evidence of his DNA mutation by saying 'those opposing Article 370 abrogation ignorant of the situation on the ground'."
'Nothing has been removed or added to my Twitter profile. The profile is as it was earlier'
The delegations led by Baijayant Panda, Ravi Shankar Prasad (both Bharatiya Janata Party), Sanjay Kumar Jha (Janata Dal-United), Shrikant Shinde (Shiv Sena), Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Kanimozhi (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party-Sharad Pawar) will visit a total of 32 countries and the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
'Wait for more action the day after (the Friday meeting).'
The ambit of the G-23 grouping increased this time as some more leaders -- Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma -- joined them.
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday said he likes leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi who are proud of their roots and noted that Modi speaks frankly about his past as a tea-seller.
The government on Tuesday faced embarrassment in the Rajya Sabha when the opposition scuttled its move to withdraw three bills, including one on raising the FDI cap in insurance sector to 49 per cent, which are expected to be introduced in Lok Sabha for replacement of Ordinances.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi will lead a delegation of Congress MPs to meet President Pranab Mukherjee, over developments in the Arunachal Pradesh assembly.
The opposition party, however, said the four eminent Congress MPs and leaders who have been included at the instance of the Modi government will, of course, go with the delegations and make their contributions.
The opposition Congress is peeved at the Modi government's move to not allow its top leaders a meeting with the visiting US President, as has been the tradition.
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,
They also demanded that if any discrepancy is found during VVPAT verification, 100 per cent counting of the paper slips of VVPATs of all polling stations of that particular assembly segment should be done and compared with the electronic voting machine (EVM) results.
Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad attacked the government for creating fear, alleging that it was just renaming the earlier policies without delivering their benefits to the poor and the needy.
Swamy gave notice in the Rajya Sabha for moving Breach of Privilege Motion against Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad over his remarks related to the AgustaWestland issue.
The Congress leader also lamented the exclusion of current Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge from the committee
This is the first meeting chaired by Gandhi after relinquishing the post of Congress president last year.
Tiwari said on Amarinder's remark that when the latter was PCC president, he had himself demonstrated as to how the EVMs can be gerrymandered.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi became emotional in Parliament on Tuesday while talking about Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad during farewell to retiring members of the Rajya Sabha.
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.
Rahul Gandhi had earlier indicated that he might be present at the Patna rally.
The six suspended MPs were also present at the protest.
Azad also accused the state and Centre of not being bothered about the people.
While the ruling party and its ministers wanted Azad to withdraw his controversial remarks and apologise, the Congress leader denied drawing any parallel between the two.
There was considerable disquiet in the Congress after Mukherjee accepted the invitation of the RSS to address its workers at its headquarters in Nagpur.
Parliament proceedings were washed out for the fourth consecutive day on Friday as the Opposition remained unrelenting on its demand for the resignation of Union Minister Sushma Swaraj and chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
The finance minister could not take the oath earlier in Parliament due to his ill-health.
Issues such as seat sharing and being part of the DMK led government were not a priority now and that the main goal was to ensure that DMK comes to power.
Ahir said there were 110 terror attacks in J&K in 3 months before surgical strikes while there were 87 such attacks in 3 months after the strikes.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday assured Rajya Sabha that the Centre will fulfill all commitments made towards Andhra Pradesh in 'letter and spirit', following protests by some Congress members.
Released on Friday after his detention under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) was revoked, former chief minister Farooq Abdullah drove from his residence to nearby Hari Nivas where his son, also a former chief minister, has been held first under preventive custody since February 5 under the PSA. The two warmly embraced.
The black bands were worn as a mark of protest against the alleged attack on the Constitution of India with the passage of the amended citizenship act by the government, leaders said.
Over 100 Opposition members of Parliament led by Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday marched from Parliament to the Rashtrapati Bhawan
The Opposition also seems to be in a disarray as far as floor coordination is concerned with no meeting held to discuss the strategy to corner the government on key issues.
Leaders of 23 political parties met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, seeking redressal of the issue of alleged tampering of electronic voting machines before Lok Sabha polls.
The move is being seen as an attempt to forge opposition unity to defeat the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
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