NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing logjam in Parliament, PM Narendra Modi will address the BJP-led NDA parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday, a get-together of the alliance’s MPs that is being held after a considerable gap, and the first during the current session of Parliament.The NDA meeting also holds significance as filing of nomination papers for the election to the vice-president of India’s post begins from Aug 7. The BJP-led bloc will have to announce its candidate – whose election to the post will be a certainty due to the alliance’s majority in the electoral college – by Aug 21, the last date of nomination-filing and the monsoon session of Parliament. The electoral college for the vice-president poll includes MPs of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and its current strength is 782.
If the opposition also names a candidate – a distinct possibility – then the poll is scheduled to be held on Sept 9.The meeting comes in the middle of a session which has been a washout so far, except for a two-day discussion on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, due to a united opposition’s continuous protest against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar by Election Commission.PM Modi is expected to speak on a host of issues as the opposition has been raising the heat over the poll body’s alleged partisan conduct favouring govt, and the terror attack and Operation Sindoor.
Sources said Modi may ask alliance MPs to counter the opposition’s narrative and also boost the ‘Tiranga Yatra’ being organised in view of Independence Day.The parliamentary party is also likely to felicitate the PM for the success of Operation Sindoor and neutralisation of the terrorists involved in the attack.Since the 2024 LS elections, when BJP lost its majority but comfortably crossed the halfway mark with allies, the meeting of the party’s MPs every session was expanded to include its allies. Before the last national elections, the PM used to address weekly meetings of the BJP parliamentary party during Parliament sessions.
