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Government reaches out to Sonia Gandhi ahead of Parliament session

PTI
New DelhiUpdated: Jun 07, 2019, 03:43 PM IST
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Union ministers with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Photograph:(Others)

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The senior ministers also met Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.

In an outreach exercise before the Monsoon Session of Parliament, Union minister Pralhad Joshi and other senior BJP ministers met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Friday. Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Arjun Meghwal accompanied Joshi, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, for the meeting which lasted around 15 minutes.

"Our meeting with Sonia Gandhi was very cordial. We sought her cooperation for the smooth functioning of Parliament. She said they (opposition) also need cooperation from treasury benches. I told her that the government has always been ready to cooperate," Joshi told reporters after the meeting at her residence.

The senior ministers also met Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha. Sources say the BJP wants to end the logjam in Rajya Sabha which has led to more than three dozen bills not seeing the light of the day. Some of them are in force as ordinance, including the one to ban the practice of instant triple talaq, and government is keen to pass them in the House of Elders.

The ordinances were issued in February-March this year by the previous government.

The Monsoon Session of Parliament begins on June 17. After new MPs take oath on the first two days, the Lok Sabha Speaker's election is scheduled for June 19. The session, the first of the 17th Lok Sabha, will go on till July 26 and the budget will be tabled on July 5.

President Ram Nath Kovind will address a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament on June 20.