Keeping up the heat on the government, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the coal-gate issue as other parties raised various matters leading to adjournment of Parliament till noon.
Dhankhar, who took to cricket in his school days and also had keen interest in spirituality and meditation, began his political journey with the Janata Dal and won the Lok Sabha elections in 1989.
Its passage in the Lok Sabha is all but certain due to the massive majority the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies have, and the Union government is confident of its passage in the Rajya Sabha as well with the support of several non-aligned regional parties which have often joined the treasury benches in the past.
Expressing solidarity with the 12 suspended Rajya Sabha MPs, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said he has decided to suspend hosting of a talk show on Sansad TV until the suspension of the legislators is revoked and a "semblance of bipartisanship restored to the conduct of Parliament".
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will not attend the swearing-in ceremonies of Parkash Singh Badal as Punjab chief minister in Chandigarh and that of Akhilesh Yadav as UP chief minister, said sources.
BJD MP Baijayant Jay Panda has written that 'reforms must reduce the Rajya Sabha's power to block the popular mandate'
Opposition members created an uproar in both Houses of Parliament on Monday over issues like allowing 51 per cent Foreign Direct Investment in multi-brand retail, demand for Telangana state and threat to people of Kerala due to Mullaperiyar dam.
Opposition members led by Trinamool Congress MP Sukhendu Sekhar and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge asked the government to clear its stand over the nationality of the minister. Without naming the minister, Sekhar said: "The prime minister has been allowed to lay a list of the ministers after the reshuffle. Go through Wikipedia, then you will find that the name of the gentleman... a minister of state for home affairs is a reportedly a Bangladeshi." Sekhar was also supported by Kharge and other opposition members.
After the trio who called on Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday -- retired diplomat and ex-Janata Dal-United MP Pavan Varma; retired cricketer and former BJP MP Kirti Azad; former Congressman Ashok Tanwar -- it was Dr Swamy's turn to call on Didi at her nephew Abishek Banerjee's Delhi home on Wednesday, instantly triggering speculation of his joining the TMC.
An interim report on the action has also been sent by the field investigation wing of the income tax department to the Central Board of Direct Taxes in Delhi, the administrative body for the department.
"We, the undersigned parties, wish to register our anguish and serious concern over the manner in which the Government is hurriedly passing legislations without any scrutiny by Parliamentary Standing or Select Committees. This is a fundamental departure from the established practice and healthy traditions of enacting legislations," the letter said.
The CAA, enacted by the BJP-led government at the Centre in 2019, aims at granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.
The Trinamool Congress condemned a Central Bureau of Investigation search at the party's Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Debabrata Bandopadhyay's residence in Delhi today saying that the central agency was being used by the Bharatiya Janata Party government with a motive of political vendetta against the main opposition parties.
They then vandalised the premises, breaking CCTV cameras and locking the main gate before leaving, he said.
The Rajya Sabha chairman said this was not the first time that such a suspension has happened. Starting in 1962 till 2010, members were suspended on 11 occasions in furtherance to motions moved by the governments of the day.
In yet another jolt to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party's Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday, as senior leader of the state's ruling party Mukul Roy, who also switched sides two weeks ago, claimed that this was the 'beginning of the saffron party's end' in the state.
Twenty suspended Rajya Sabha members on Wednesday started a 50-hour relay protest inside the Parliament complex, with sources saying the Opposition declined the chairman's offer that they express regret over their members' behaviour in the House to get the suspension revoked.
The party may announce Somen Mitra as the Lok Sabha candidate from North Kolkata whose name is set to be decided upon following intra-party elections to choose contenders -- a move initiated by the Congress vice-president to ensure transparency in ticket-distribution system. Renu Mittal reports.
The tumultuous Winter session of Parliament ended on Wednesday a day before schedule with proceedings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha marred by repeated disruptions by the opposition over which the government and the Congress traded charges and the presiding officers expressed their anguish at the conduct of some MPs.
Amid demands for getting the long-pending Women's Reservation Bill passed, the government on Wednesday said it is ready to extend the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha if the House agreed.
The West Bengal Congress unit issued a denial and said the state president meant "TMC and BJP are just the opposite sides of the same coin as both are venomous and spread lies".
CBI sources said Bose was interrogated for more than three hours.
The Trinamool Congress on Saturday launched its slogan for the upcoming assembly elections -- 'Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chaye', adding to the shrill insider vs outsider debate while portraying Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the daughter of Bengal.
Parliament on Monday passed The Farm Laws Repeal Bill, to repeal the three contentious agri laws against which farmers have been protesting for over a year, with its passage in Rajya Sabha.
Combative Congress members, upset over the National Herald case, on Tuesday paralysed Parliament protesting against alleged "vendetta politics" leading to repeated adjournments in the Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha.
The TMC, which is keen to leave a mark in its outing in Goa, had suggested a broad alliance but not much has moved on the proposal due to competing interests and apparent lack of faith between the opposition parties.
The controversy over allowing FDI in retail rocked Parliament for the third day on Tuesday with a united opposition forcing adjournment of both the Houses till noon. Shortly after the Lok Sabha met for the day, members rushed to the Well, demanding rollback of the decision to allow FDI in the retail sector. Members of Trinamool Congress, a key partner of the United Progressive Alliance, kept shouting 'Cancel FDI in retail'.
Opposition leaders on Saturday stepped up pressure on Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla for stringent action against Bharatiya Janata Party's Ramesh Bidhuri over his derogatory remarks against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali in the House.
Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation.
Both Houses of Parliament witnessed multiple adjournments on Monday as opposition MPs continued their protest over the Pegasus snooping row and other matters. Amid ruckus by the Opposition, the Rajya Sabha passed the Inland Vessels Bill-2021 while the Lok Sabha passed the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill with voice-vote.
Sushmita Dev said it would have been better if there were more women MPs in the panel.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Tabled by Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, the legislation will reverse the effect of the Supreme Court verdict in May that gave the Delhi government power over administrative services.
Abstention by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi also helped the government get its legislation through in the upper house where the ruling party does not enjoy a majority.
The standoff in Parliament over remarks of Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Mani Shankar Aiyar against Opposition ended on Wednesday with the Trinamool Congress member being reprimanded by Speaker and Aiyar expressing regrets.
Banerjee, on a visit to Maharashtra, was scheduled to meet Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray earlier, but as he is unwell, she met his son and minister Aaditya Thackeray, sources said.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee are among the star campaigners of the party for the October 30 bypolls to four Assembly seats in the state, but interestingly, the names of actor-turned-MP Nusrat Jahan and former BJP leader Babul Supriyo, who recently joined the TMC camp do not feature in the list.
According to sources, several opposition leaders are also considering boycotting the inaugural function on Sunday, alleging that the government has insulted the President.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
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