BRS attends Congress's meeting on Adani row; TMC stays away

After refusing to extend an invitation for the Bharat Jodo Yatra grand finale in Srinagar, Congress has invited K Chandrasekhar Rao-led BRS to a meeting of the Opposition on Friday to fine-tune floor strategy in Parliament during Budget Session on taking up the issue of Adani Group.

The Congress move came a day after the BRS joined the Opposition protest demanding a discussion on financial exposure of SBI and LIC in Adani Group, which is accused of stock manipulation and fraud, though it was not invited to the first meeting on Thursday. On Thursday itself, the BRS' K Keshava Rao joined other Opposition leaders to jointly address the media on the issue.

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Congress and BRS were not on good terms for long and the latter has expressed its unwillingness to accept Congress' pole position in the Opposition stable. During the Telangana-leg of Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi had made it clear that the Congress will not have any tie-up with BRS while the party also refused to invite Rao to Srinagar for yatra's finale.

However, sources said, the Congress and other parties were of the view, all parties should stand united inside Parliament though they may differ outside. With the BRS making clear its stand, sources said, it was decided to invite them to the meeting.

While BRS attended the meeting, which saw the participation of 15 parties, Trinamool Congress decided to skip the meeting citing that there was no need for a second meeting as the strategy was decided during the Thursday meeting itself which it attended. AAP also attended the meeting

As reported by DH, the Opposition will hold a joint protest at Gandhi Statue in Parliament on Monday morning on the Adani Group issue. Sources said a third meeting of the Opposition parties will be held on Monday morning before the protest to finalise the day's strategy.

As of now, sources said, the Opposition is unlikely to disrupt proceedings on Monday, as they wanted the initiation of Motion of Thanks to the President's Address during which it would attempt to corner the Narendra Modi government on the issue.

Sources said the plan during the debate on Motion of Thanks is to stick to the issue of financial exposure of LIC and SBI in Adani Group while questioning the Modi government why it made the public sector entities to invest in the conglomerate.

Besides the Congress, BRS and AAP, the parties which attended the Friday meeting are DMK, SP, Shiv Sena, RJD, JD(U),CPI(M, CPI, NCP, National Conference, Muslim League, Kerala Congress (M) and RSP.