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The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties have resolved to raise during the Parliament’s Monsoon session the issues of Pahalgam attack terrorists not being brought to justice, United States President Donald Trump’s repeated claims of brokering a ‘ceasefire’ during India-Pakistan hostilities and the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar that the opposition alleges ‘threatens people’s voting rights’.
PTI reported that ahead of the Monsoon session beginning on July 21, the leaders of 24 opposition parties of the bloc held an online meeting where they decided to raise eight major issues like foreign policy ‘failure’ and ‘atrocities’ in Gaza, delimitation exercise and ‘targeting’ of SCs/STs, women and minorities in the country.
Addressing the media after the meeting, the Congress’ deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Pramod Tiwari, said the opposition parties would expect the prime minister to be present in Parliament and respond to the issues raised on the floor of the House, asserting that ‘Parliament is more important than travelling abroad’.
He also said that an in-person meeting of the bloc leaders would take place ‘soon’ after Saturday’s ‘successful and cordial’ online meeting.
The opposition grouping has not met for a long time. Notably, Aam Aadmi Party, which is a founding member of the bloc, decided to opt out of the Saturday online meeting after it announced that it is no longer a part of the bloc.
Incidentally, several senior leaders of the group, including chief ministers of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin — were not present in the meeting.
Leaders who participated included Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar’s Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Abhishek Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Tejashwi Yadav (Rashrtiya Janata Dal), Ram Gopal Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Tiruchi Siva (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) M A Baby of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, D Raja (Communist Party of India), Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, among others.
