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.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O'Brien was suspended from the Rajya Sabha on Thursday for the remainder of the winter session of Parliament and the matter referred to the privileges committee as he did not leave the House even after repeated directions from Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Trinamool Congress Friday appointed former party MP Arpita Ghosh as its state general secretary, two days after the Rajya Sabha chairman accepted her resignation from the Upper House.
Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge sought to raise the issue of inflation and price rise and demanded a discussion on it. The deputy chairman said it cannot be entertained as the Question Hour was on.
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.
Oppn members went into the area of treasury benches carrying a black banner, which demanded Shah's resignation, as Speaker Om Birla continued with proceedings of the House.
'Most senior Congress leaders in Assam have a secret understanding with the BJP.' 'They are hobnobbing with the chief minister for their self-interest.'
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic. Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn't want to lodge first information reports (FIRs) against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
The ruling BJP has issued a whip to its MPs, asking them to ensure their presence in the House.
With a significant number of Opposition leaders present at the swearing-in ceremony of the Congress government in Karnataka, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday said Opposition unity requires much more than optics of this nature and stressed the need for meeting of minds, a common agenda and sacrificing partisan interests.
Locked in a bitter tussle with the Centre over the control of administrative services, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will meet the chiefs of the Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray and the Nationalist Congress Party this week seeking their support.
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.
Mamata Banerjee's opposition to the Congress's Lokpal Bill was not a stand-alone event. Her unrelenting stand on FDI and other reform measures of the government are signs of a failing relationship, says Neerja Chowdhury.
Prasun Banerjee and Jawhar Sircar represented TMC in the meeting, which discussed the Opposition strategy on Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Parliament.
Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar convened the meeting of leaders of opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha, which was attended by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, independent Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav, Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction) member Anil Desai and Bharat Rashtra Samithi member K Keshav Rao among others.
West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Friday filed a defamation case against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the Calcutta high court, a day after she said that women complained to her saying that they were afraid to visit the Raj Bhavan because of the activities there, a source said.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
The Election Commission had on July 16 said that bypoll to the Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal vacated by Dinesh Trivedi earlier this year will be held on August 9.
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A three-judge Supreme Court bench will hear petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, on April 16. The petitions, including those by politicians and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, were filed in the top court challenging the validity of the newly-enacted law. The Centre has filed a caveat in the apex court, seeking a hearing before any order is passed.
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.
The controversy over a Trinamool Congress member of Parliament mimicking Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar took political centrestage on Wednesday with the issue playing out both inside and outside Parliament and President Droupadi Murmu joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi in expressing dismay.
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned till 2 pm after opposition members held protest in Parliament seeking a discussion on the issue.
He was elected to Rajya Sabha on a seat left vacant after TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi joined the BJP before the recent West Bengal assembly elections.
On Day 2 of Parliament's monsoon session 2020, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to make a statement on the continuing standoff between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
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Dhankhar expressed his anguish on the conduct of Opposition members and left the House for a while.
The Congress party, which seems to be short of the numbers to shepherd the Lokpal bill though the Rajya Sabha, is trying desperately to avoid voting on the bill in the upper house as the debate over the bill winds down in Parliament on Wednesday evening.
The meeting of the Congress Core Group was held at a time when government is scrambling for numbers to pass the Lokpal Bill in Rajya Sabha with Trinamool Congress insisting that it will move amendments to delete the provision for setting up Lokayuktas at the state level.
The bill, which criminalises instant divorce by Muslim men and seeks jail term for the guilty, was the first draft legislation tabled by the Narendra Modi government in this first session after it took oath of office for a second term in May.
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"I am not allowed to speak in the Rajya Sabha often. Should I say it is because I am a Dalit?" he asked.
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.
He also pointed out the high sums earned by the coaching centres leading to the commercialisation of education.
Law Minister Salman Khurshid has favoured reaching out to the Opposition and the ruling coalition's allies on Lokpal and other issues and dismissed suggestions that Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee was a 'difficult customer'.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
The opposition strategy seems to be to get these amendments incorporated into the final bill that will then be put to vote. This will mean that the Congress may be forced to vote against the final bill, since it may not be in agreement with some of the amendments forced by the opposition.
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