INDIA bloc to hold meeting in Delhi on July 19: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav

New Delhi: INDIA bloc will hold a meeting at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence here on July 19, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said on Thursday.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut also said his party has conveyed that July 19 would suit them for the meeting.

Opposition leaders are expected to deliberate key issues to be raised during the forthcoming Monsoon session of Parliament.

"INDIA bloc will hold a meeting at Kharge sahab's residence in Delhi on 19th July, RJD will participate in that," Yadav said, addressing a press conference in Patna.

Speaking at a presser in Mumbai, Raut said, "The meeting of INDIA bloc is going to be held in Delhi. Yesterday, we got a call from K C Venugopal Ji...Uddhav Thackeray Ji says that there is a need for a meeting of INDIA bloc. We have picked the date of July 19." The Monsoon session of Parliament is scheduled to commence from July 21 and there will be a total of 21 sittings of both Houses till August 21.

The session will take a break from August 12 to August 18 for Raksha Badhan and Independence Day celebrations.

An all-party meeting convened by the government is likely to take place on Sunday.

The session is expected to witness stormy confrontations between the ruling BJP and the Opposition, including the Congress-led INDIA bloc.

Among the likely flashpoints between the government and the Opposition will be the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar, ahead of the state assembly polls later this year.

The Opposition is also expected to seek answers from the government on Operation Sindoor and US President Donald Trump's claims of having averted a nuclear war between India and Pakistan by mediating a ceasefire.

The top Congress leadership has decided to raise issues, such as the Pahalgam terror attack, the SIR of the electoral rolls in Bihar, the restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and rising atrocities against women in the country, during the Monsoon session of Parliament.

The opposition party has also decided to raise farmers' problems, the issues of rising unemployment, safety and security of the country and the Ahmedabad air crash during the Monsoon session.

Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi had convened a meeting of the party's parliamentary strategy group at her 10, Janpath residence here on Tuesday evening.

Top party leaders, including Congress president Kharge, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha Pramod Tiwari and others, such as Jairam Ramesh, K Suresh and Manickam Tagore, had participated in the meeting.