Sonia chairs meet of UPA leaders, allies on session strategy

 United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday chaired a meeting of leaders of constituent parties and other allies to discuss their floor plan during the Budget Session.

The meeting was attended by Congress President Rahul Gandhi, newly-nominated Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, CPI leader D. Raja, DMK's Kanimozhi and T.R. Baalu, Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, VCK leader Thirumaavalan Thol, RSP leader N.K. Premachandran, IUML leader P.K. Kunhalikutty, and KC-M leader Thomas Chazhikadan.

Party sources said that the leaders discussed the opposition plans to deal with the BJP-led NDA in Parliament during the Budget Session on issues like 'one nation, one election', triple talaq and others.

In the Budget session, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha would have 30 and 27 sittings respectively between June 17 and July 26.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the all-party meeting in Parliament, told the floor leaders of different parties to keep political differences aside and not disrupt the functioning of the two Houses. He also urged all political parties to work cohesively with the government for a smooth functioning of the Parliament.

Modi and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi had invited Presidents of all parties with representation in Parliament on June 19 and MPs from both the Houses on June 20 to freely interact and exchange views with the government. IANS