Absence of 20 members hurt opposition's will to send the bill to standing committee
New Delhi, Jul 30: Nearly 20 opposition MPs, including five each from the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, were not present in Rajya Sabha during voting on the contentious triple talaq bill, sources said.
The Congress MPs in the upper house may now have to give an explanation to the party as it had issued a whip to ensure the presence of all its members during voting on the bill.
The ruling dispensation got the 'The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019', passed in Rajya Sabha with 99 members voting in favour and 84 against it.
Sources said that the opposition could have managed to get the nod to send the bill to a Select Committee of the house if its MPs were present in the House.
The five Congress MPs who were absent are Vivek Tankha, Pratap Singh Bajwa, Mukut Mithi and Ranjib Biswal, besides Sanjay Sinh, who earlier in the day resigned from the party.
Besides, Congress and SP members who were absent, senior NCP leaders Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel and one member each of Trinamool Congress, DMK, IUML and Kerala Congress were also missing during voting in the house.
Another prominent member who was not present during the voting was KTS Tulsi, who is a nominated member but was against the bill.
Besides MPs of opposition parties not present, abstention by AIADMK, BSP and TRS also helped the government get its legislation through in the upper house where the ruling party does not enjoy a majority.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
