By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Opposition parties said they were prepared for the Friday's no-trust vote as they slammed the Modi government's policies and described the current political situation as emergency like.
Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi claimed her party had the numbers while party spokesperson Rajeev Satav said they will talk to all the Opposition parties to forge unity ahead of the no trust vote.
"We got the date for the no-trust vote only today. We will talk to everyone," said Satav, adding "there is a lot of resentment among the lawmakers against the Modi government."
The 12 parties including Congress, NCP, TMC, BSP, SP, RJD, DMK, CPI-M, CPI, JD-S, IUML and KC-M had discussed the no-confidence motion on Monday.
"This is an anti-people government. It has not fulfilled even 10 percent of the promises made in 2014," said Congress leader KV Venugopal.
The Congress said among the key issues they will highlight to attack the centre would be joblessness, farm crisis, women's safety, lynchings, corruption, atrocities against dalits etc. Sonia Gandhi will chair a meeting of party lawmakers on Thursday to decide the speakers in the no-trust vote debate.
TMC leader Derek O'Brien described the political situation in the country akin to an emergency and said his party had issued whip asking all the 34 Lok Sabha members to be present in the house on Friday. TMC leaders urged the Speaker to defer the trust vote saying the party had scheduled an event on July 20 but later agreed to chair's decision.
The TDP, which was an NDA ally till March, also moved a no-confidence motion and issued a whip to all the 16 members. The TDP would stress on the pending special status to Andhra Pradesh, an issue that led the party to party ways with the BJP. Venugopal said the Congress was with TDP on the issue.
NCP, which also moved a no-confidence motion, too had asked all the 7 members to be present in the house on Friday. The opposition parties would demand the government to pass the women's reservation bill pending in the house for the past eight years sensing that the BJP may not be too keen to see it through this session.
Rahul Gandhi, who urged PM to pass it on Monday, tweeted on Wednesday urging all political parties to support the land mark legislation. Sources added they would also try to enlist support of the PDP, which recently broke from the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir.
