All-party meet: Congress seeks LS Dy Speaker's post for opposition, raises NEET issue
New Delhi(PTI): The Congress on Sunday sought the Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker's position for the opposition in the all-party meeting convened by the government ahead of Parliament session, and raised the issue of paper leaks, including of the prestigious NEET, sources said.
Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi said at the meeting that the opposition should be allowed to raise issues in Parliament after Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju sought cooperation from every party for the smooth running of the two Houses, the sources said.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Rijiju said 55 leaders from 44 parties attended the all-party meeting where useful discussion took place.
He said running Parliament smoothly was the collective responsibility of the government and Opposition and that the government was open to discussing any issue in Parliament by following laid down rules.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who chaired the meeting, referred to the opposition's continuous protests during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech during the last session, and said such incidents should not happen in Parliament.
During the meeting, Samajwadi Party MP Ramgopal Yadav raised the issue of the Uttar Pradesh government's controversial directive to eateries on the 'kanwariya' route to display the owners' names, the sources said.
The YSR Congress spoke about the TDP government's alleged targeting of its leaders in Andhra Pradesh and sought the Centre's intervention.
Claiming that lawlessness prevails in Andhra Pradesh, it said President's rule was the only solution.
At the meeting, YSRCP MP Vijaysai Reddy also flagged the issue of funds for Andhra Pradesh from the central pool.
He said states following population control were being punished in share of revenue and the issue must be addressed by the Finance Commission.
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) raised the issue of alleged assault on an officer by the Odisha governor's son, saying it seems he was above law.
BJD MP Sasmit Patra said after the meeting that his party will play the role of a strong opposition on the floor of the House and underlined that his party was neither with the opposition INDIA Bloc nor the government.
The BJD faced reverses in the recent assembly polls in Odisha and failed to open its account in the Lok Sabha polls.
Separately, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that in the all-party meeting, the JD(U) and the YSRCP demanded special category status for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh respectively but "strangely" the TDP kept quiet on the matter.
YSRCP MP Reddy also questioned the silence of TDP on the issue of special category status for Andhra.
In a post on X, Ramesh, who was present at the meeting said, “In today's all-party meeting of floor leaders chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the JD(U) leader demanded special category status of Bihar. The YSRCP leader demanded special category status for Andhra Pradesh. Strangely, the TDP leader kept quiet on the matter.”
In another post, the Congress leader said, "How the political climate has changed! In the all-party meeting of floor leaders, the BJD leader reminded the Defence Minister and BJP President JP Nadda that the BJP's manifesto for the 2014 assembly elections in Odisha had promised special category status to the state."
JD(U), a key ally in the ruling NDA had recently passed a resolution demanding special category status or package for Bihar.
Though leaders from Andhra Pradesh had been demanding special category status for the state, the demand has again gained momentum post Lok Sabha polls.
Ramesh later also said that at the meeting, there was a universal demand for the Central Hall to be opened up again for MPs to mingle with each other.
He said the historic Central Hall has sadly has fallen into disuse after opening of new Parliament building.
The political rivalry between the TDP and the YSRCP also played out at the meeting, with TDP MP Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu saying that the Andhra Pradesh government will release a white paper on status of finances of state in a day or two. He claimed it will send shockwaves.
He said the party will raise in Parliament the issue of financial mess Andhra Pradesh is in, apparently referring to the rule of the previous YSR government.
"We made request at all-party meeting to be given enough time in Parliament to raise all issues of Andhra Pradesh, Devarayalu said.
Nadda, Gogoi and Union minister and LJP (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan were among the the leaders who attended the meet.
Defence Minister Singh and Rijiju put forth the government's view at the customary meet.
Besides, Congress' Ramesh and K Suresh, as also Asaduddin Owaisi of AIMIM, RJD's Abhay Kushwaha, JD(U) Sanjay Jha, AAP's Sanjay Singh, SP leader Ramgopal Yadav and NCP's Praful Patel were present at the meet.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday during the session beginning Monday.
A united opposition is set to corner the NDA government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case to railway safety.
The session begins on Monday and will have 19 sittings till August 12 when the government is expected to present six bills, including the one to replace the 90-year-old Aircraft Act, and also get Parliament's nod for the budget of Jammu and Kashmir, which is under central rule.
Sitharaman will also table the Economic Survey in Parliament on Monday.
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Modi govt rattled by Rahul’s Great Nicobar visit; project concerns need Parliament debate: Cong
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Sunday flagged in detail concerns related to ecology, tribal rights, transparency and security, over the Great Nicobar project, and asserted that these considerations must be debated in a parliamentary forum.
The opposition party claimed that the Modi government is "rattled" and in damage control mode after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's visit to Great Nicobar last week.
In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "The Modi Government, clearly in damage control mode after the hugely impactful visit of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, to Great Nicobar on April 28 2026, issued a press note on the Great Nicobar Island Development Project three days later."
This press note does not address any of the serious concerns that have been raised on it by local affected communities, environmentalists, anthropologists, academics, civil society experts and other professionals, Ramesh said.
"These concerns had already been conveyed in detail by me to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests & Climate Change on September 10, 2024 and in a follow-up on September 27, 2024," the former environment minister said.
During his visit to Great Nicobar, Gandhi last week alleged that the Great Nicobar project at Campbell Bay in Andaman and Nicobar Islands was "one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against the natural and tribal heritage of the country".
The government on May 1 released a detailed statement with answers to FAQs (frequently asked questions).
"The Great Nicobar Project is a strategic initiative to strengthen India's presence in the Andaman Sea. It seeks to balance port-led growth with calibrated environmental safeguards. Protection of indigenous communities remains central to its planning," the government statement had said.
"The project combines strategic, economic, and ecological priorities. This ensures that development is sustainable, inclusive, and aligned with national interests," it had said.
In his four-page detailed statement, Ramesh spelt out the key concerns over the Great Nicobar project.
Flagging ecological concerns, Ramesh said the Great Nicobar is unique and distinctly different from all other islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group.
"The Government's claim that only 1.82% of the total land of the island group is being used for the project is irrelevant and misleading. It ignores the ecological and biological richness of the Great Nicobar ecosystem, which is unique both in the island group and in the world," he said.
"Galathea Bay, the site of the port, is unequivocally a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) is a site where port construction is not allowed. As per records of the Zoological Survey of India, Galathea Bay is home to more than 20,000 coral colonies, a key marker of a CRZ-1a categorisation. Similarly, the beach here is the most important nesting site of the Giant Leatherback turtle in the Northern Indian Ocean," Ramesh said.
The recently concluded turtle nesting season saw record turtle nesting at Galathea Bay, he pointed out.
Ramesh alleged that institutions like the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) were literally coerced to play a key role in the environmental clearance and related process for the project.
"These very institutions have now been awarded projects for biodiversity research and monitoring in Great Nicobar. There is a clear conflict of interest here," he argued.
In addition, a couple of reputed and independent-minded institutions that have been very critical of the project have been blacklisted by the Modi government, he said.
Similar is the case with the high-powered committee (HPC) constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the matter of the challenge to the project's environmental clearance granted, he said.
All the HPC's members either represented the project proponents or agencies which granted the clearances, Ramesh said.
He said the proposal for compensatory afforestation in Haryana is a travesty of ecological principles.
Flagging tribal rights concerns, Ramesh said the Nicobarese Tribal community has expressed concerns multiple times about the project and its impact on their forests, rights, and way of life.
"In November 2022, they withdrew the NoC they had granted for forest diversion saying that they were rushed to sign by concealing the extent of tribal areas to be affected by the project. Representatives of the Nicobarese community also stated in a recent press conference that they were being forced to voluntarily surrender their land for the project," he pointed out.
The claims stand even more exposed in the matter of the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), that lives a life of hunting and gathering in the deep forests of Great Nicobar, Ramesh said.
The Shompen are a primarily uncontacted community and there are no non-Shompen speakers of their language, he pointed out.
"It is not clear then how the project authorities have taken their informed consent, which is both ethically appropriate and legally mandated," Ramesh said.
Pointing out that government release has claimed that the airport in Great Nicobar will eventually handle 10 million passengers annually, Ramesh said this appears prima facie to be a huge over-estimation given that the current airport at Port Blair handles 1.8 million passengers annually.
"The deliberations of the Forest Advisory Committee for granting the project's forest clearance were not made public. The report submitted by the High-Powered Committee that examined the clearance granted to the project was kept confidential. The field report prepared by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) that pronounced the status of the site of the port from CRZ-1A to CRZ-1B overnight, remains confidential," he pointed out.
Ramesh also flagged security concerns about the project, saying no less a person than the courageous former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) himself has argued in an article that "the security capabilities of ANC (Andaman & Nicobar Command) need to be addressed separately and must have no linkage with the developments contemplated for GNI (Great Nicobar Island)."
"There is thus no need to link India's legitimate security imperatives with the so-called 'development project' - complete with a township, high-end tourist infrastructure, and large transshipment terminal - that the Modi Government is intent on bulldozing through and on which it is now trying to muzzle genuine and much-needed debate hiding behind "security considerations", he said.
"These considerations must, at the very least, be discussed and debated in a Parliamentary forum," Ramesh said.
