Joshi conducts all-party meeting ahead of winter session

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi on Sunday held an all-party meeting here ahead of the winter session of Parliament beginning on Monday.

Besides Joshi, his junior Cabinet colleagues Arjun Ram Meghwal and V. Muralidharan, Union ministers Amit Shah and Thawarchand Gehlot also attended the meeting convened at the Parliament Library building.

Telugu Desam Party's Jaydev Galla, Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Bahujan Samaj Party's Satish Mishra participated in the meeting.

Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Lok Janshakti Party lawmaker Chirag Paswan, Republican Party of India leader Ramdas Athawale, AIADMK's Navneet Krishnan and Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal(S) also took part in the meeting.

Other leaders included MDMK's Vaiko, T.K. Rangarajan of Communist Party of India (Marxist), T.R. Balu of DMK, YSRCP's V. Vijayasai Reddy, Manoj Jha of Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ram Gopal Yadav of Samajwadi Party were among those present in the meeting.

As the Central government is likely to push for passage of almost 35 legislations that are to be taken up in the session, including the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which amends the definition of illegal migrants, and the Personal Data Protection Bill, the opposition parties are likely to raise the issues of their concern.

Currently, there are 43 bills pending in Parliament. Of these, 12 bills are listed for consideration and passing, and seven are listed for withdrawal. Twenty-seven bills are listed for introduction, consideration, and passing.

The Parliament session, which will end on December 13, will see a total of 20 sittings.

Some of the other important bills to come up are the Industrial Relations Code Bill, 2019, which amalgamates the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019 to replace an ordinance; the Companies (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019 to amend the Companies Act, 2013 to decriminalise certain offences and facilitate ease of doing business; the Chit Funds (Amendment) Bill, 2019 facilitating orderly development of the chit fund industry introduced in Lok Sabha in August 2019.

The others are the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Bill, 2019, which repeals the Indian Medicine Central Council Act, 1970, and sets up a National Commission to regulate the education and practice of Indian systems of Medicine. It was introduced on January 7, 2019 in Rajya Sabha.

Also included are the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 prohibiting commercial surrogacy; the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Amendment) Bill, 2019. It removes the president of the Indian National Congress as a trustee and empowers the central government to remove nominated members.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Saturday held a similar all-party meeting here to ensure smooth and uninterrupted house proceedings during the functioning of the session, requesting all parties to cooperate in running the house in continuity and in an orderly manner.

( With inputs from IANS )