NDA leaders meet ahead of Parliament Monsoon session

Leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other union ministers, took part in the NDA Floor leaders meeting on Sunday ahead of the Parliament Monsoon Session which is scheduled to begin from Monday.

PM Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president JP Nadda and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Pashupati Kumar Paras among others arrived at the Parliament House for the meeting at around 3 pm.

Other leaders of the ruling alliance, including Tamil Maanila Congress leader GK Vasan, Janata Dal United's Ram Nath Thakur and Anupriya Singh Patel from the Apna Dal also attended the meeting.

The meeting concluded about an hour later. The government has a series of legislations on its agenda for the Monsoon session which is scheduled to conclude on August 13.

Opposition leaders are also scheduled to meet today to chalk out a strategy to target the Central government over several issues, including the farmers' agitation, privatisation and the Supreme Court's comments on the validity of Sedition laws.

"Privatisation, farmers issue, government's attitude towards federalism and many other issues are there. The Supreme Court's comments on 124 A of the IPC is a national issue. All such issues that we shall raise in the session will be discussed in the meeting. The aim is to achieve maximum consensus among the opposition parties. But, if all parties do not agree on the proposal of the left parties, particularly Privatisation Bill, and factory employees' strike issue then left parties will raise these issues in both houses of the Parliament separately," Communist Party of India (Marxist) Rajya Sabha MP Elamaram Kareem said earlier today.

An all-party meeting also took place today, in which the Prime Minister assured that the government is ready to hold discussions on any subject raised as per parliamentary rules and procedures.

More than 40 leaders from 33 parties attended the all-party meeting held at the Parliament on Sunday a day before the commencement of the Monsoon session.

( With inputs from ANI )