New Delhi: The customary all-party meeting called by the Centre on Tuesday to discuss the agenda for the Budget Session of Parliament, which gets underway on Wednesday, witnessed tense moments when Congress MP Pramod Tiwari accused the Union government of misusing central agencies against opposition leaders. The all-party meeting, which was attended by Defence Minister and Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Rajnath Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi and his deputy Arjun Ram Meghwal on behalf of the government, discussed the agenda of the upcoming session, which would begin with the President Droupadi Murmu’s Address on January 31.
Interim budget to be presented on February
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would, on February 1, present the interim budget and the session would run up to February 9, those attending the meeting were told. This would be the last session before the Lok Sabha elections and the full budget would be presented later by the new government. During the meeting, Tiwari raised the issue of misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate by the Centre for targeting the opposition.
Congress lists incidents to prove misuse claim
"The questioning of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in money laundering cases was indicative of such misuse of power", the Congress leader contended. The manner in which the central agencies were being misused for political gains demonstrated the existence of “unwritten dictatorship” in the country, Tiwari claimed. The MP also pointed out that the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra being led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had come under a “violent attack” in Assam.
Floor leaders of various parties attended meet
The meeting was attended by the floor leaders of various parties. These included Kodikunnil Suresh of the Congress, Sudip Bandopadhyay of the Trinamool Congress, TR Baalu and T Shiva of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Rahul Shewale of the Shiv Sena, Pinaki Mishra of the Biju Janata Dal, K Chandrashekhar Rao of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, ST Hasan of the Samajwadi Party, Ram Nath Thakur of the Janata Dal (United) and Jayadev Galla of the Telugu Desam Party. However, no representative of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) attended the all-party meeting.
