Opposition leaders meet Naidu after Parliament ends

After a bitter fight with the ruling dispensation during the winter session of Parliament, leaders belonging to opposition parties on Wednesday gathered at Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu’s chamber.

After a bitter fight with the ruling dispensation during the winter session of Parliament, leaders belonging to opposition parties on Wednesday gathered at Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu’s chamber, people familiar with the matter said.

Opposition leaders read the Preamble to the Constitution of India, and recite the national anthem before the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Parliament on Wednesday. (PTI)

Naidu set the mood for friendly talks when he quipped how Dravida Munnetra Kazagham’s Tiruchi Siva, who usually wears a mundu (a garment worn around the waist by south Indians) and a shirt, was “looking smart in the suit”.

Some other leaders took the opportunity to suggest Trinamool Congress’s vocal floor leader Derek O’ Brien be made chairman of a House panel. But a witty Opposition leader said that O’Brien refused to agree with the suggestion as he believes that he may lose opportunities to disrupt the Upper House, the people cited above said without naming the leader.

The leaders at the chamber held some serious discussions, too. A leader pointed out that the government had taken no action on the recommendations of a panel set up by Naidu on Online Child Pornography, the people cited above said. To this, leader of Rajya Sabha, Piyush Goyal, quickly assured that he would follow up on the matter with the ministries of child and women development and information technology.

The leaders also spent time discussing the lack of attendance in House panel meetings.

A witty Congress leader told Naidu that the latter should give the Opposition “adequate notice of seven ministers meeting him to suspend some of us for the budget session”, referring to the incidents that led to suspension of 12 MPs in the winter session.