Opposition to raise NEET issue in Parliament today

Leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) have decided to raise the NEET issue in both houses of Parliament on Friday and members will give notices in this regard, sources have said.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the INDIA bloc floor leaders on Thursday, they said, adding that opposition members are set to file adjournment notices in the Lok Sabha and under Rule 267 in the Rajya Sabha.

The leaders of various parties have also decided to hold a protest on Monday morning before the parliamentary proceedings start, raising the issue of 'political vendetta' against opposition leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren and three West Bengal ministers, using agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and income-tax department, the sources said.

INDIA bloc leaders met at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence in New Delhi.

Besides Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule (both from the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar), Derek O'Brien (Trinamool Congress), Sanjay Raut, Priyanka Chaturvedi (Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Sanjay Singh, Sandeep Pathak (both Aam Aadmi Party), N K Premchandran (Revolutionary Socialist Party) and Mahua Majhi (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) were present on the occasion.

Gandhi later said in a Facebook post that he attended the floor leaders' meeting.

'All of us are committed to unitedly raising the issues concerning people and fight for their rights,' the Congress leader said in the post in Hindi.

The opposition leaders discussed a range of issues that will be jointly raised in both houses of Parliament. The issues include unemployment, price rise, misuse of central agencies, breakdown of institutions, the NEET exams and paper leaks.

With the INDIA bloc parties demanding the appointment of a deputy speaker in the Lok Sabha from the opposition ranks, the sources said they would press for their demand strongly and discuss the names for the post soon.

They are of the view that the deputy speaker's post should go to any of the principal opposition parties like the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the TMC or the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

'Floor leaders of INDIA parties met at INC President Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge ji's residence to chalk out the strategy for the rest of the Parliament session,' Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said in a post on X.