Consensus emerged on the appointment of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the chairperson of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), while Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar's name was proposed for the convener's post, pending approval of parties absent at the alliance meeting on Saturday, according to sources.
Ill-health forced Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to cancel his scheduled visit to Chennai on Tuesday, where he was invited by his Tamil Nadu counterpart MK Stalin, a key aide of the Janata Dal-United leader said.
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
Bihar's ruling JD-U and Lalu Prasad's RJD will contest the state assembly elections in alliance and a 6-member committee will be constituted for seat-sharing talks.
After days of tough posturing between leadership of the Janata Dal-United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar on the issue of alliance for the assembly elections, action has now shifted to the national capital, where top leaders from both the parties will meet to thrash out the differences.
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.
The upcoming Opposition meet in Patna scheduled for next week will not discuss a possible prime ministerial candidate and will focus on deciding the common agenda for the parties to work on in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
Sources said senior leaders of the party have been told to reach out to other leaders of the alliance and talks with some parties have begun.
"NCP president Sharad Pawar, Loktantrik Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav, DMK chief MK Stalin, Bihar's former deputy chief minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, SP president Akhilesh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal among other opposition leaders will attend the oath-taking ceremony in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh on December 17," said well-placed sources.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (United) have reached a no-poaching pact ahead of the polls in Karnataka.
A meeting of Opposition parties, organised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will be held in Patna on June 23, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
"The BJP is the largest ally in the National Democratic Alliance and it is for that party to take a decision. So, Advani's choice is but natural," he added.
Speculation is rife that Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United is likely to support the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance's choice for the upcoming Presidential poll. This ties in with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's refusal to attend the meeting of non-BJP parties called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on May 26. The meeting will discuss the presidential polls and the way ahead for the opposition to tackle the BJP.
The technology-driven futures trading in gold and silver would fulfill its objectives only if poor farmers and small goldsmiths benefit from it, Sharad Yadav, minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution, said in New Delhi on Friday.
The online gold futures trade on the National Multi Commodity Exchange of India will be launched by Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Sharad Yadav in New Delhi on Friday.
Earlier this week, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi held a series of meetings, including with Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Janata Dal-United president Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan.
Opposition leaders asked all secular forces to field a joint candidate for presidential elections and have common minimum programme to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party, reports Archis Mohan.
Gandhi's name was the only name discussed when 18 opposition parties met to decide on their candidate for the vice presidential poll, the sources said.
Nitish Kumar on Monday escalated the stand-off in the ruling JD-U in Bihar.
The central government on Thursday ruled out the restructuring of the Food Corporation of India and instead asked the states to remove the shortcomings in the public distribution system.\n\n
It is impossible to say when would these leaders stab each other for political gains," it said.
The government has taken action against 28 manufacturers of packaged drinking water and natural mineral water for deviating from prescribed specifications, Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.
With the Modi government battling propriety issues over the Lalit Modi row and the furore on Vyapam scam, leaders of "like-minded" parties will meet for Congress president Sonia Gandhi's Iftar dinner on Monday where they are likely to deliberate on the strategy for Parliament session beginning July 21.
Ahead of the day-long Opposition meeting on Friday, Samvad Bhavan, Rajkiye Atithisala and Sadaquat Ashram have got a facelift.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
Kumar also asserted that his efforts should reap benefits for the younger generation, "for people like (his deputy) Tejashwi Yadav".
All political parties were asked at the dinner meeting on Monday night to suggest names for the alliance and the same would be discussed and consensus would be arrived at during the deliberations.
Amid raging controversy over quality of bottled water, the government on Monday said the high-level inquiry panel probing alleged presence of deadly pesticides in branded packaged water would soon submit its findings.
Kumar, who is now heading an alliance government in Bihar which includes the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and the Left, has reached out to leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, all of whom are opposed to the BJP but not very comfortable with the grand old party either.
Aditya Verma, the petitioner in the Indian Premier League betting and spot-fixing case, says, as per the Supreme Court order, no official having commercial interest in the BCCI can stand in the elections because of conflict of interest.
In a move aimed at consolidation of opposition forces, six constituents of the erstwhile 'Janata Parivar' will soon become one party as their leaders on Thursday authorised Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav to work out the "modalities" in that direction.
Leaders of several like-minded opposition parties are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday in Bengaluru.
His son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav lit the funeral pyre. The former Uttar Pradesh CM had died aged 82 at a private hospital in Haryana's Gurugram on Monday.
The marathon meeting, spread over two sessions and kept under wraps, came a day after top leaders of socialist-leaning parties attended SP's silver jubilee meet here -- a move seen as an attempt by Mulayam to forge an alliance ahead of the assembly polls hardly a few months away.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
'If unity is not going to be based on values and principles, how will we achieve it?'
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