PM Modi to speak at key NDA meet today ahead of Vice-President polls as Parliament deadlock continues
The Opposition is raising its pitch against the ruling coalition on the SIR in Bihar and Modi's meeting will be his first address to the NDA's parliamentarians after a long gap, PTI said.
PM likely to be felicitated
PM Modi is also likely to be felicitated by the NDA's parliamentary party on its decision to give a strong military response to the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, PTI said.
Vice president poll on 9 September
The polling for the vice presidency will be held on 9 September if both the NDA and the Opposition field their candidates. The electoral college for the vice presidential elections 2025 has a current strength of 782 members and comprises MPs of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
Sources said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju and a few BJP national general secretaries will be meeting allies and coordinating with them for the vice presidential poll.
After the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which the BJP lost its majority but comfortably crossed the halfway mark with the help of its allies, the sessional meeting of the party's MPs was enlarged to include the party's allies as well. Modi had addressed the first such meeting on July 2.
Before the last Bihar assembly election, he used to address the weekly meetings of the BJP Parliament logjam party which has since then expanded to include the party's allies such as TDP, JD(U) and LJP (Ram Vilas).
Modi at these meetings often delves into a range of political and governance issues besides at times touching upon the government's agenda in Parliament.
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Indian Express
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J&K Governor who oversaw Article 370 abrogation, Satya Pal Malik became vocal BJP critic in his last years
A former BJP leader from western Uttar Pradesh's Jat belt who started his political journey in socialist circles, Satya Pal Malik was the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir when the Centre abrogated Article 370 and scrapped its special Constitutional status on August 5, 2019. Exactly six years since that day, Malik passed away in New Delhi on Tuesday after a prolonged illness. He was 79. In the last few years, Malik had been publicly critical of the Narendra Modi government, making statements ranging from the allegation that the Centre had asked him to keep quiet on the lapses that led to the Pulwama attack in 2019 to corruption in Goa, where he was the Governor after his J&K stint. This May, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Malik in an alleged case of corruption in the Kiru hydel project in Kashmir. Ironically, it was the veteran leader himself who had publicly spoken of the alleged corruption in the project in 2021 while he was serving as Meghalaya Governor. The statement had left the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre red-faced as he alleged the involvement of an RSS leader. His critics had dismissed all these statements, claiming he wanted to resurrect his political career in Uttar Pradesh. 'Saddened by the passing away of Shri Satyapal Malik Ji. My thoughts are with his family and supporters in this hour of grief. Om Shanti,' Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. Born on July 24, 1946, in Hisawada village in UP's Baghpat district, Malik started as a student union leader in Meerut in 1968-69. 'In the late 1960s, he was president of the student union of Meerut College. This was the time of anti-Congressism and the 'Angrezi Hatao (remove English)' movement in UP. He started as a follower of (Ram Manohar) Lohia ji and joined the socialist youth organisation, Yuvjan Sabha,' JD (U) leader KC Tyagi, who knew Malik for 50 years, told The Indian Express. Tyagi recalled that Malik was always a straight talker and a good orator. Malik won the Baghpat Assembly seat in 1974 as a nominee of Chaudhary Charan Singh's Bharatiya Kranti Dal. He later joined the Bharatiya Lok Dal under Charan Singh and became its general secretary. During the Emergency, Tyagi recalled, Malik and he were in Meerut jail. In 1980, Malik entered the Rajya Sabha on a Lok Dal ticket. By 1984, he had moved to the Congress, which sent him to the Rajya Sabha in 1986. The following year, in the wake of the Bofors scam, he resigned from the Congress. Malik joined V P Singh and two years later won the Lok Sabha election from Aligarh as a Janata Dal candidate. In 1990, he briefly served as the Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism. Malik briefly joined the Samajwadi Party before moving to the BJP in 2004. He unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections, losing to Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh from Baghpat. In its first term, the Modi government appointed Malik head of a parliamentary team that looked into the Land Acquisition Bill. After the panel gave its recommendations against the Bill, the government put it in cold storage. Run as Governor In October 2017, the government appointed Malik as the Bihar Governor, but transferred him to J&K just over a year later. With that, he became the first politician appointed to the post since militancy began in Kashmir. His tenure was a controversial one. First came 'faxgate'. In November 2018, when Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti staked claim to form the government with the support of the National Conference and the Congress and sent a fax to the Raj Bhavan, it went unacknowledged. A representation by People's Conference leader Sajad Lone also went unanswered. Malik dissolved the Assembly that evening, citing the 'impossibility of forming a stable government by the coming together of political parties with competing ideologies', the 'fragile' security situation, and reports of horse-trading. Later, he said history would have remembered him as a 'dishonest man' had he allowed Lone to form the government. 'So, I ended the matter once and for all. Those who abuse me will continue to do so, but I am convinced I did the right thing,' he said. Months after the Assembly's dissolution, J&K's special Constitutional status was revoked and it was made a Union Territory. Just two months after that, Malik was moved out to Goa. This is when his ties with the BJP started souring, and the sense of unhappiness only strengthened when he was shifted to Meghalaya. In March 2020, at a public meeting in Baghpat, Malik said J&K Governors largely just drank and played golf. 'The Governor has no work,' he said. 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Indian Express
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AAP objects to BJP leaders' photos on notebooks distributed to Surat students
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