Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday skipped the all-party meet convened by the government ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament where a total of 31 parties attended. Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh staged a walkout, claiming that the government was not allowing him to raise farmers' issues. "The government does not allow anyone to speak," claimed the AAP leader.
On behalf of the government, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh sought cooperation from all the parties for the productive and smooth functioning of the House.
Speaking on the absence of the PM, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi said the tradition of the prime minister attending the all-party meeting only took off after PM Modi had taken over the office. "Before Modi became Prime Minister, only the parliamentary affairs minister used to come. The PM could not come today," he added.
After the meeting, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said the political parties were expecting Prime Minister Narendra 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.
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.
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.
The Winter Session of Parliament will begin on Monday and conclude on December 23.
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