Few takers for Rahul Gandhi’s meet, none for Arun Jaitley’s

NEW DELHI: Parliament House witnessed two failed meetings on Thursday. The first one was designed by Congress to make Rahul Gandhi play strategic coordinator with other Opposition parties and the second was where finance minister Arun Jaitley was to play peacemaker with Opposition parties.

At Gandhi’s meeting, Congress managers could get just NCP and AAP nominees, while the rest of the Opposition invitees chose to give Gandhi a cold-shoulder. At the other meeting convened by Jaitley, the entire Opposition chose to keep off.

At the same time, PM Modi had “brief talks” with Congress’ Ghulam Nabi Azad and ex-PM Manmohan Singh when they reportedly bumped into each other in the Rajya Sabha lobby. When the RS was adjourned, Modi also walked up to many Opposition leaders and exchanged pleasantries. Some see this as an attempt by the PM to assess the mood in the Opposition camp for a possible personal initiative for peace talks.

Many members of Opposition parties in the Lok Sabha got calls or SMSes from Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, inviting them to the Congress office in Parliament for coordinating a united floor strategy.

The fact that barring NCP and AAP no other Opposition party, including SP, RJD, JD(U) & Trinamool, was unwilling to attend the meeting advertised the fact that Gandhi has not yet risen in esteem of other Opposition parties and they were not ready to formally accept Congress leadership by trooping into the latter’s office.

At the meeting, Gandhi decided with NCP and AAP leaders that they will continue to carry on the protest over LaMo and Vyapam scams.

On the other side, Naqvi sounded out Opposition leaders for a meeting with Jaitley. However, leaders of the Opposition parties decided not to turn up on the ground that there was no point to have such a meeting given the stand-off in the Houses. Sensing there will be no one turning up, Naqvi later informed the leaders that the “meet has been cancelled.”