Farm laws, inflation key issues at all-party meet
The winter session of the Parliament will begin on Monday and conclude on December 23
NEW DELHI: An all-party meeting convened by the government ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament started on Sunday with most opposition parties demanding a discussion on the Pegasus snooping row, price rise and unemployment.
The Winter Session of Parliament will begin on Monday and conclude on December 23
Sources aware of the deliberations at the meet said opposition leaders also raised the issue of extended jurisdiction of the Border Security Force in some states, including West Bengal.
Trinamool Congress leaders Sudip Bandopadhyay and Derek O’Brien are learnt to have raised the issue of bringing laws on minimum support price and disinvestment of profitable PSUs.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), however, walked out of the meeting, claiming it was not allowed to speak.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh said he walked out as he was not allowed to raise issues related to farmers, especially on a law on MSP.
The prominent opposition leaders present at the customary session-eve meet included
Mallikarjun Kharge, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Anand Sharma from the Congress, T R Baalu and Tiruchi Siva from the DMK, Sharad Pawar from the NCP, Vinayak Raut from the Shiv Sena, Ramgopal Yadav from the Samajwadi Party, Satish Mishra from the BSP, Prasanna Acharya from the BJD and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday said all the parties, which attended the meet, demanded immediate action on a law on minimum support price (MSP) for farm produce.
He said demands were also raised to extend compensation to those farmers who died during the protest against the three farm laws. Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week announced his government’s decision to withdraw the three laws.
After the meeting, Kharge told reporters that there were some other big issues which were raised by the parties such as the rising prices of petrol and diesel and the tensions at
LAC with China.
He said the political parties were expecting PM Modi would attend the meeting and share something with them.
The leaders wanted to ask more about the farm laws as there were some apprehensions that these three farm legislations might again come in some other form, he said.
PM Modi did not attend Sunday’s meeting.
Parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi said there is no tradition of the PM attend