The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have said they did not get an invite to the all-party meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the border face-off between India and China on Friday, their leaders have said.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh had on Thursday called and invited all leaders on behalf of the Prime Minister and 20 parties will attend the meeting, according to reports. It will be also attended by Union home minister Amit Shah and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda, they said.
AAP leaders Sanjay Singh and Gopal Rai have said their party did not get the call for the meeting.
“A strange ego-ridden government is ruling at the Centre. The Aam Aadmi Party has a government in Delhi. It’s the main opposition party in Punjab. There are four MPs all over the country but still the BJP does not want its opinion on such an important matter. The whole country is waiting for what the Prime Minister will say in the meeting,” Sanjay Singh tweeted in Hindi on Thursday.
Singh also said all parties should be brought together during a national emergency.
“Instead of taking all the parties together, the BJP is using mathematical formulas to ascertain who should be invited and who should not be. It is unfortunate,” he said.
Rai also said the AAP will launch nationwide protests against the Chinese aggression on Saturday and party MLAs will stage protests in their respective constituencies.
“To protest the attack on Indian soldiers by China, Aam Aadmi Party will hold ‘Aakrosh Pradarshan’ tomorrow on June 20 at 11:00 am. There will be a demonstration in all the 70 assembly constituencies of Delhi. India will not tolerate the insult of brave soldiers,” Rai tweeted in Hindi.
Similarly, the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav said his party has not been called for the meeting.
“The Rashtriya Janata Dal is the largest party in Bihar and it has 5 MPs in Parliament but we have not been invited to today’s all-party meeting on the face-off between India and China We want Rajnath Singh ji to clarify as to why the RJD hasn’t been invited,” Yadav, who is Bihar’s Leader of Opposition, said on Friday.
Before that, he had questioned the defence minister and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) over the miss.
Reports said all recognised national parties, those with more than five MPs in the Lok Sabha, leading parties from the northeast and parties with Union cabinet ministers have been invited for the all-party meeting.
It comes amid demands by the opposition seeking details of the violent face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh which left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.