Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sonia Gandhi sit next to each other at Parliament event
New Delhi (PTI): Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who quit the Congress three years ago, on Tuesday was seen having an animated chat with former president of the party Sonia Gandhi and sitting next to her at a function held in the Central Hall of the old Parliament building.
Gandhi was sitting with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party's Leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in the front row when Scindia stopped by and spoke to them.
He then sat next to Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur.
After some time, Scindia moved to sit near Gandhi as Kharge and Chowdhury left their seats to share the dais with Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Leader of the Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi at the event.
Scindia had quit the Congress along with 22 MLAs, leading to fall of the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh in 2020.
Members of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha both had assembled in the Central Hall to participate in the event organised to commemorate the rich legacy of Parliament.
Dhankhar, Modi, Birla, Kharge, Chowdhury and Goyal addressed parliamentarians at the event.
In her address, BJP MP Maneka Gandhi, who has served as minister for women and child development in the past, said she is proud to be part of the moment when the government will be giving women "an equal share in the future of India".
"I am as surprised as you are, seeing me here," she said in her opening remarks at the event.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
