Sibal, who quit the Congress last year, said the party's Kanyakumari to Kashmir Yatra "optically" seems to have succeeded and gotten the support of non-Congress elements as well.
Top leaders of the Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) held talks in an informal setting in Mumbai on Thursday evening to chart out a concrete roadmap and evolve a structure for cooperation among the alliance partners to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Sri Lanka is facing 'a very serious crisis' that makes India naturally worried, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told an all-party meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday and dismissed suggestions about such a situation arising in India.
Opposition leaders also raised the issue of MPs not being allowed to visit Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of its special status, whereas parliamentarians from Europe have been taken to the state, with Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury describing the EU delegation as 'bhade ke tattu' (hirelings).
Mufti was among hundreds of people who were taken into preventive custody hours ahead of the Centre revoking special status of the Jammu and Kashmir and breaking the state into two union territories on August 5 last year.
'We have been cheated. We are trying to bring Article 370 back'
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha will be the consensus presidential candidate of several opposition parties, including the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party, the parties said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
'My request to Amit Shah would be "Please do not use archaic laws and muscle power against voices that have always stood by India.".'
The visit by the MPs comes nearly two months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met top leaders of Jammu and Kashmir on June 24.
The alliance adopted a resolution to this effect and said its theme for the elections will be "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India, (India will unite, India will win)".
"They (those who celebrated the win) don't have anything to do with them (Pakistanis)... It was done to provoke the BJP. They were children and young boys and this should serve as an eye-opener for the BJP," Abdullah said at a public meeting in Surankote in Poonch district.
The government on Monday said that matters regarding Chinese intrusion can't be discussed in Parliament as it concerns the security of the country.
Union Minister and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday ruled out any problems with ally Congress in Jammu and Kashmir.
The clarification was issued through an advertisement in local dailies after facing political backlash, including from parties perceived close to the government.
Efforts to forge unity in the opposition ranks gained momentum on Monday with the Congress asserting that a 'vast majority' of non-Bharatiya Janata Party outfits will meet soon, after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met its president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi.
According to sources in the Congress, eight legislators are likely to be sworn in as ministers along with them.
National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah on Thursday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and the ruling partners are understood to have discussed the situation arising out of the continued unrest in Jammu and Kashmir. In Srinagar, his son and chief minister, Omar Abdullah, fuelled speculation by meeting the state governor N N Vohra
'This move rendered the chiefs of important investigative agencies to the status of daily wage earners. It undermined the autonomy and independence of the agencies.'
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday launched a veiled attack on Congress leaders and said he gave sweat and blood for the party unlike those who are spreading 'falsehood' through social media.
he Centre on this day in 2019 had revoked Article 370, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated it into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Several prominent opposition leaders including Nationalist Congress Party's Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah will share the dais at a rally being organised by Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana's Fatehabad on Sunday.
Sonia stated that it was not surprising that people would back one of their own, said Tharoor.
If Jammu and Kashmir comes under Governor's rule, it will be for the eighth time in four decades.
Can Nitishbabu create an anti-BJP phalanx like Jayaprakash Narayan did in 1977 or will his efforts come undone by Opposition leaders' political ambitions and, of course, the BJP's agency-aided campaign of intimidation?
In separate statements issued in Srinagar, former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed urged the Indian government not to embark on "punitive measures" against Pakistan as it would cast a shadow on Jammu and Kashmir.
At a time 20-odd opposition parties, many of them regional rivals, joined forces over the Adani issue, Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar's open support for industrialist Gautam Adani has put a question mark on the durability of a non-Bharatiya Janata Party block in the run-up to the 2024 parliamentary elections.
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.
'Our fight is not against the country but against the BJP and its ideology. The BJP is not the country and vice versa'
"I am free... Hope others political leaders would be released soon. Thank all parliamentarians who fought for my freedom. Will be able to take decision on future only after other leaders are released," Abdullah, the Lok Sabha member from Srinagar, told reporters from the terrace of his residence in Srinagar.
Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natrajan has denied the charge that the Gongress has reached an understanding with Farooq Abdullah, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and promised to make him the chief minister in case his party wins the forthcoming state assembly elections that would be held in seven phases between November 17, and December 24.
Birla did not name Moitra and urged members not to cast aspersions on the chair as it amounted to disrespect of the House.
"Azad saab (Ghulam Nabi Azad) had spoken on behalf of all of us that we don't accept this timeline -- we don't accept delimitation, election, statehood, we want delimitation, statehood and then election. If you want to hold polls, you'll have to restore statehood first," said Omar Abdullah.
In the present case, the legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir is yet to be constituted after the erstwhile state was bifurcated into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in 2019.
Omar Abdullah said that if The Kashmir Files was a commercial movie, no one has an issue, but if the film makers claim that it is based on reality, then the facts are the other way round.
Security deployment remained in vulnerable areas and mobile and internet services were yet to be restored in most parts of the Valley 48 days after the Centre abrogated Article 370 provisions of the Constitution.
Restrictions under Section 144 CrPc have been imposed in few areas of the valley to maintain law and order, the officials said.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget speech on Wednesday was marked by the usual thumping of benches by the ruling alliance members, but the loudest cheer was reserved for her announcement of income tax relief, which was welcomed by 'Modi, Modi' chants in Lok Sabha that also witnessed a few instances of protest by the Opposition.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
The home minister speaking in the Lower House when asked about the detention of leaders in Jammu-Kashmir said that curfew has been withdrawn from all police station limits in Jammu and Kashmir and not a single person died due to police firing.
