Ruling Samajwadi Party appeared to be headed for a split on Sunday as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his party supremo and father Mulayam Singh were engaged in an open face-off, sacking each other's loyalists Shivpal Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav.
The proceedings of the House were adjourned till 2 pm as slogan-shouting TMC and other opposition MPs trooped into the well of the House, some holding placards, to demand a discussion on the issue of Israeli-made, military-grade Pegasus spyware being used to snoop on opposition leaders, government critics and journalists.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav, Samajwadi Party's Ramgopal Yadav and Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal will meet at Sharad Pawar's residence on Wednesday.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday offered to discuss the issue of call drops and poor service by state-owned BSNL and MTNL in the Rajya Sabha.
Congress reached out to Samajwadi Party Supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav for his support for passage of the Food Security Bill which is expected to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday coinciding with the birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi.
Mulayam announced that sacked minister Gayatri Prajapati will be taken back in the UP cabinet.
At the meeting attended by 33 parties, the prime minister said suggestions from public representatives, especially from the Opposition, are valuable as they make the discussion rich.
Reservation was voiced in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday over the decision to shuffle the timing of Question Hour and Zero Hour from Parliament's next session with Samajwadi Party seeking its reconsideration.
"There is no matbhed (difference) or manbhed (ill feelings) among our leaders," Yadav said.
Mulayam has convened a meeting on Saturday of the 393 candidates who have been allotted tickets by him. Party insiders said the meeting was very crucial as the SP chief was likely gauge the sentiments of the candidates and conduct a fresh review of the list amid fears that the battle for control in SP left the party cadres divided and highly confused at grassroots level.
The choice of candidates for 175 seats by Shivpal has apparently not gone down well with his defiant nephew Akhilesh who, according to party insiders, is understood to have prepared his own list of preferred candidates for all the 403 UP assembly seats and sent it to his father and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
While seven of the suspended MPs belonged to the TMC, six were from the DMK, three from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, two from the Communist Party of India-Marxist and one from the Communist Party of India.
Pitching for the safe passage of Communal Violence Bill in the current session of Parliament, Minorities Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan on Thursday said it is not a divisive bill and efforts are on to arrive at a consensus on the issue.
Jaitley said the CAG report has reference to the shortage of ammunition in relation to a point of time.
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 Opposition alleged that without any provocation from the Opposition, "outsiders who were not part of Parliament security were brought in to manhandle the Opposition leaders and members, including women Parliamentarians who were only protesting against the Government's conduct, highhandedness and muzzling of the voice".
In a veiled attack on Narendra Modi-led dispensation, Rahul Gandhi slammed those who were trying to "rub out" Jawaharlal Nehru from history as an international conference on the country's first prime minister affirmed that democracy, inclusion and empowerment espoused by him were of "enduring relevance".
The proceedings were washed out over various issues including the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and roster system for reservation in educational institutions.
Seeking to woo Muslims as well as upper castes, the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday promised quota in police and other government jobs for minority community, release of "innocent" youths jailed on terror charges and constitution of an upper caste commission in its manifesto brimming with sops.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
With Diwali failing to thaw strained ties in the Mulayam clan, a show of strength is on the cards as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav takes out his 'Rath Yatra' on November 3, two days before ruling SP's silver jubilee show organised by his uncle Shivpal Yadav.
Giving a message of larger opposition unity, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh will march with leaders of at least ten parties from Parliament House to President House on Tuesday and submit a memorandum against the new land bill.
Mulayam on Sunday blamed the defeat on son Akhilesh's decision to ally with a Congress, which he said had tried its best to "ruin" him.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday conducted raids at over a dozen locations in Chhattisgarh including at premises linked to state Congress leaders as part of an ongoing probe into the alleged coal levy scam, officials said.
The government has readied a big legislative agenda for the Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning Monday even as the Opposition is raring to corner the ruling dispensation over a host of issues, including handling of the second wave of COVID-19, rise in fuel prices and farmers' stir.
Raising the communal temperature in riot-affected western Uttar Pradesh going to polls on Monday, Narendra Modi's close aide Amit Shah has spoken of the current election being an opportunity to take "revenge for the insult" during the violence in Muzaffarnagar last year.
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.
The Samajwadi Party on Monday struck a defiant note on the issue of suspension of IAS officer Durga Sakhti Nagpal, saying officials are punished whenever they do something wrong and the Centre can withdraw IAS officers from the state.
The announcements were made as per the compromise formula worked out by SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who asserted that "There can be no division in the party."
Akhilesh Yadav begins his campaign for next assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.
Under fire from the opposition on the Union Public Service Commission row, the government on Wednesday decided to convene an all-party meeting on the issue while indicating its unwillingness to postpone the civil services preliminary examination scheduled for August 24.
Mulayam, Akhilesh shout at each other as SP supremo defends Shivpal, Amar Singh.
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.
Various opposition parties like the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Communist Party of India, and the Communist Party of India-Marxist raised vociferous protests in the upper house while opposing the resolution and the bill.
A united opposition on Monday cornered the government in Parliament, accusing it of focusing on issues like religious conversions instead of fulfilling promises of bringing back black money and creating jobs.
Over 100 Opposition members of Parliament led by Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday marched from Parliament to the Rashtrapati Bhawan
Raising the issue, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the prime minister should come to the House and clarify on what he said, as his charges that his predecessor was "conspiring" with Pakistan was "a big issue."
This is the first meeting chaired by Gandhi after relinquishing the post of Congress president last year.
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.
Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said all the commissions were functioning and the process of filling up the vacancies was on.
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