Terror, SIR...: INDIA bloc’s Monsoon agenda

NEW DELHI: Ahead of Parliament’s Monsoon session which is set to begin from July 21, Opposition INDIA bloc parties met in the Capital on Saturday and resolved to raise the issues of Pahalgam terror attack and the terrorists responsible for the brutal killing of tourists in South Kashmir not being brought to justice, US President Donald Trump’s repeated claims of brokering a ‘ceasefire’ between India and Pakistan and the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.

The leaders of 24 Opposition parties of the bloc held an online meeting and 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.

Briefing the media after the meeting, Congress’ deputy leader in 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.

Leaders who participated in the meeting included Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Jharkhand Cchief Minister Hemant Soren, NCP (SP)’s Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray (SS-UBT), Abhishek Banerjee (TMC), Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Tiruchi Siva (DMK) M A Baby of CPI-M, D Raja (CPI), CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, among others.

Sources close to TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee said that he raised the issue of SIR in Bihar, alleging that the BJP and the Election Commission are using it in the form of “backdoor NRC”.

He said the BJP is using “E square” (E2) in its attack - “ED for opposition leaders and EC for voters”. He also pointed out that after four months of Lok Sabha elections, BJP added 40 lakh voters to win the polls. The TMC leader said the BJP was trying to enact a similar plot in Bihar. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress caught the BJP on additional voters so the party was trying to introduce NRC to remove genuine eligible voters.

The leaders expressed serious concern over the government’s “inaction” in bringing to justice the terrorists behind the Pahalgam attack and its “silence” on repeated claims made by US President Donald Trump in bringing about a ‘ceasefire’ on the hostilities between India and Pakistan, according to Tiwari. The leaders also expressed concern over the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar that “threatens the voting rights of people” in the state, he said.

“There is an undeclared Emergency that has been imposed and voting rights are under threat,” he said. Tiwari also said that the leaders expressed concern over India’s foreign policy, asserting that it is the prime minister who is answerable to everyone in the country.

He said some of the leaders raised the issue of delimitation and “atrocities” against SC, ST, women and minorities.

“We have also decided that soon an INDIA bloc meeting will be held physically,” he said while noting that today’s online meeting was “very cordial and took up the concerns of the 140 crore people of the country”. “We would want Parliament to function so that we raise the issues and the government answers,” he said.

The opposition bloc’s meeting was held after a long gap, and 24 political parties, including the Congress, TMC, DMK, RJD, SP, NCP-SP, Shiv Sena (UBT), JMM, CPI-M, CPI, CPI-ML, Forward Bloc, IUML and Kerala Congress, participated in the discussions.