Consensus seems to be eluding the Congress over the issue of Telangana with Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday refusing to set any deadline for deciding the statehood issue.
A draw of lots was held on Friday to allot Rajya Sabha members to Telangana and residual Andhra Pradesh following division of the state.
The Telangana Rashtra Samiti had backed the NDA on demonetisation, GST and in the elections to the post of President and Vice-President during its last term.
The opposition bloc also got support from Telanagana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's BRS, which saw the bill as a move to usurp powers of an elected government in Delhi, and asked the House to vote against it.
The Congress on Thursday objected to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar deleting some portions of Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge's speech from official records, saying he used no unparliamentary words and some of the expressions he employed were earlier used even by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Bharat Rashtra Party and Samajwadi Party, came together in a show of unity on Thursday and accused the Modi government of getting the second half of the budget session washed out, while asserting that if this attitude continues, the country will move towards a "dictatorship".
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu also made a fervent appeal to the leaders of various parties at an all-party meeting to ensure smooth and effective functioning of the House during the Budget Session.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah asked the opposition on Monday to allow a debate on the Manipur issue to begin in Parliament but the deadlock persisted in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as both sides refused to budge from their stand, with Congress and its allies insisting on a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi first.
Though the wily TRS supremo, credited with achieving the separate state of Telangana, stopped short of saying he was about to declare dissolution of the assembly, none doubted its imminence.
Earlier, KCR had met West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee as part of efforts to build a non-Congress, non-BJP third front ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
'Even at Galwan Valley, our soldiers are now not allowed to patrol at the point at which they used to patrol earlier. In the Pangong area, in a more than eight-kilometre area they are not allowing us to patrol, the area which we used to patrol. Previously, we used to patrol till Finger 8 and now we are not being allowed to patrol till Finger 8'
Cross-voting by Left and Congress MLAs on Friday helped Trinamool Congress gain an extra seat in West Bengal while a similar action by Congress MLAs in Andhra Pradesh saw the Telangana Rashtra Samithi making its debut in Rajya Sabha as high drama marked the polls to the upper House in the two states.
The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill on protection of rights of transgenders after a motion to refer it to a Select Committee of the Upper House was defeated.
The bill rules out any provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of atrocities against SC/STs, notwithstanding any court order.
The two-member commission will be headed by former Calcutta high court Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya. Former Supreme Court judge Madan Bhimrao Lokur is its other member.
Both the TRS and Congress are desperately looking for alliances to form the first government in Telangana, however, the last resort for both of them will be to join hands. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
The Bill was supported by the members across party lines, however, some suggested to add in its purview hospital sanitary staff, ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers and 'Corona warriors' in emergency services such as police and personnel from other departments.
Among the parties that boycotted the proceedings of the House included the Congress, which was the among the first to walkout, followed by members of the CPI-M, CPI, TMC, NCP, SP, Shiv Sena, RJD, DMK, TRS and AAP.
Several opposition members, including from the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and the Communist Party of India-Marxist, also pointed out that the government took almost two months to impose the lockdown after the first case came to light in January, and claimed the delay had proved costly.
Gandhi kicked off his 15-km padyatra from Koritical village in Adilabad district to highlight the problems faced by farmers.
As the House took up the debate on Motion of Thanks on the President's Address, the Bharatiya Janata Party launched a frontal attack on opposition parties specially the Congress for their stance against the CAA, saying they were trying to divide the nation.
'The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill' makes employment of children below 14 years as cognisable offence for employers and provides for penalty for parents.
This after high drama in the House over what opposition charged was "intimidation" by the treasury benches to get the motion for sending the amendment to the RTI Act to the select committee rejected.
Jaitley said the Opposition has been using the zero hour to raise the issue for 'getting footage on TV'.
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