Narendra Modi government calls all-party meeting on July 20

NEW DELHI: The Modi government has begun efforts to salvage the forthcoming monsoon session and has called an all-party meeting on July 20 to reach out to the Congress-led Opposition that is planning to pressurise the NDA regime with demands for the resignation of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and BJP chief ministers Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Sources said Modi has asked parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu and his deputies RP Rudy and MA Naqvi to talk to various parties and bring them on board on some of the crucial bills that the government intends to bring in this session. "An all-party meeting is being called by the parliamentary affairs minister on July 20 in which PM Modi will also be present. The government will try to persuade the Opposition to allow smooth functioning of Parliament in the monsoon session," a Union minister told ET.

This meeting, to be held on the eve of the session starting from July 21, will be preceded by a meeting of all Union ministers and their secretaries on July 16 where the status of pending and new bills will be discussed, sources said.

While the government has offered to discuss inside House the controversies involving Swaraj, Raje and Chouhan, the Opposition is not ready to settle for anything less than their resignations. However, some of the opposition parties like SP and NCP are not in favour of demanding Swaraj’s head, though they want the issue of her extending help to controversial businessman Lalit Modi in getting travel documents from the UK to be discussed in Parliament.

"The Opposition is very charged up this time and has a host of issues on which it can corner the government. This monsoon session is likely to be washed out and government has little hope," another Union minister said.