Day Before Winter Session, Opposition Sena Skips NDA Meet: 10 Points

The winter session of parliament which begins tomorrow will continue till December 13.

Highlights

All-party meeting to be followed by meeting of ruling NDA
Sena will sit in opposition benches in Rajya Sabha, Sanjay Raut said
"Look forward to a productive Parliament session," PM Modi tweeted

New Delhi: A day before the winter session of parliament begins, several key meetings were held today where leaders across party lines discussed the agenda for the next session. The first of the two all-party meetings lined up for today began this morning. It was followed by a meeting between the leaders of the ruling National Democratic Alliance where the Shiv Sena was not in attendance amid a tussle with the BJP. The series of meetings began on Saturday ahead of the winter session where the centre is set to push the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, aimed at granting nationality to non-Muslim immigrants from neighbouring countries. On Saturday, Prime Minister tweeted he looks "forward to a productive parliament session where people-centric and development oriented issues would be discussed."

Here is your ten-point cheat sheet on this big story:

The Shiv Sena, which is in talks with the NCP and Congress over government formation in Maharashtra amid tussle with the decades-old ally BJP, said on Saturday that it will give the NDA meet a miss, which will be held this afternoon after the all-party meeting. "I have learnt that the meeting (of NDA constituents) is being held on November 17. We had already decided against attending the meeting considering the developments in Maharashtra," party leader Sanjay Raut said.
The divide between the two allies - the BJP and the Shiv Sena - has also triggered a revision of seating arrangements in the Rajya Sabha. The Shiv Sena, which walked out of the Modi government at the centre earlier this week, will sit in the opposition benches in the Rajya Sabha, Sanjay Raut said.
Sena leader Arvind Sawant had announced his resignation from the union cabinet on Monday. "We have got to know that the seating arrangement of two Shiv Sena MPs has been changed in the parliament," Sanjay Raut said on Saturday, referring to Mr Sawant's resignation. Mr Raut is one of the three MPs of the Shiv Sena in the upper house.
The first of the two all-party meetings, which was called by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi, concluded this afternoon where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Congress's Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Trinamool Congress's Derek O-Brien, DMK's TR Baalu, among other political leaders, were in attendance.
The second all-party meet will be chaired by Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu at around 4 pm. Senior leaders of the BJP will also meet this afternoon, followed by the NDA meet.
On Saturday, PM Modi tweeted that he "had a wonderful interaction with leaders and MPs across party lines" at the all-party meeting called by Lok Sabha speaker Om Prakash Birla. "We look forward to a productive Parliament session, where people-centric and development oriented issues would be discussed," he further wrote.
The winter session of parliament which begins tomorrow will continue till December 13 and both the houses of parliament will take up nearly 35 bills, including the crucial Industrial Relations Cod apart from the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes (Production, Manufacture, Import, Export, Transport, Sale, Distribution, Storage and Advertisement) Ordinance, 2019 (No. 14 of 2019).
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill will also be one of the key bills that will be taken up in the winter session. The BJP-led NDA government had introduced the bill in its previous tenure too but could not push it amid protests by opposition parties, which criticised the bill as discriminatory. The legislation seeks to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan if they have fled their respective country due to religious persecution.
In the monsoon session, which marked the beginning of 17th Lok Sabha soon after PM Modi's big win in the national elections, the parliament passed two key bills. Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, was scrapped and triple talaq - the practice of Muslim men uttering "talaq" thrice to get a divorce - became a punishable offence.
Earlier this month, Congress's Ghulam Nabi Azad had said that the opposition parties plan to hold a joint protest on issues such as economic slowdown, RCEP, farm distress and unemployment during the parliament session.