Narendra Modi skips all-party meet

New Delhi: Ahead of the winter session of Parliament, an all-party meeting was held on Sunday. Thirty-one political parties attended the meeting and 42 leaders from different parties participated in the discussion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was expected to be there, did not attend the meeting.

On this, Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi said, "Modi ji started the tradition of coming to the all-party meeting. Before that, only the Parliamentary Affairs Minister used to come. The PM could not come today." Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said, "We were expecting PM Modi to come for the meeting. We wanted to ask his opinion on farmers' bill." Many issues, including MSP, inflation, fuel price hike, and Covid-19 were raised. The Opposition parties also demanded a discussion on the Pegasus snooping row. Sources aware of the deliberations at the meet said Opposition leaders also raised the issue of extended jurisdiction of the Border Security Force in some States, including West Bengal.