AAP MPs had protested outside the Parliament on Tuesday to protest Kejriwal's arrest

AAP MPs had protested outside the Parliament on Tuesday to protest Kejriwal's arrest

AAP MPs had protested outside the Parliament on Tuesday to protest Kejriwal's arrest

The Congress-led opposition parties will protest in and outside the Parliament complex on Wednesday for "discrimination" against the non-NDA-ruled states in the Union Budget.

This comes after the leaders of the INDIA bloc parties on Tuesday met at the 10 Rajaji Marg residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha  

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Pramod Tiwari, Congress deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh attended the meeting. From allied parties, NCP (SCP) supremo Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, TMC's Derek O'Brien and Kalyan Banerjee, DMK's T R Baalu, JMM's Mahua Maji, AAP's Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh, and CPI(M)'s John Brittas were present.

"The concept of a budget has already been destroyed by this year's Union Budget. They have completely discriminated against most of the states. So general sentiment of the INDIA bloc meeting was we have to protest against this," Venugopal told reporters.

In a post on X, Venugopal later said, "The Union Budget presented today was extremely discriminatory and dangerous, which completely goes against the principles of federalism and fairness that the Union Government must follow."

"This government's attitude is completely antithetical to Constitutional principles. We will not participate in an event that is solely designed to hide the true, discriminatory colours of this regime," he added.

Congress MP Pramod Tiwari alleged that the budget had "blacked out" states where there are non-BJP governments. "We will hold a protest tomorrow in the Parliament regarding this. We will raise our voice inside Parliament and outside also...This is not the budget of the BJP, it is the budget of the whole country, but they have presented it as if it is BJP's budget...This budget is againt the federal structure of the country," he alleged.

On Tuesday, AAP MPs had protested outside the Parliament complex against the alleged conspiracy to arrest Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Barring Mamata Banerjee, all the INDIA bloc chief ministers will boycott the NITI Aayog meeting scheduled for July 27. 

It was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin who first announced the boycott in Chennai and DMK's Kanimozhi informed the decision to INDIA bloc allies during the meeting at Kharge's residence. Following this, the Congress said its chief ministers including Himachal Pradesh's Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, Karnataka's Siddaramaiah and Telangana's Revanth Reddy will skip the meeting. Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren and Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan are also expected to give the meeting a miss.

Mamata and O'Brien will attend the meeting and "strongly use the platform to hold the Union government responsible" for Bengal's legitimate dues.

"They have not given us our money. What was the point of GST then? We can’t impose taxes because they impose cess. More than Rs 1.7 lakh crore is pending but nothing is being given to us, not even a single paisa. They have asked for our statement before the meeting. So we are submitting a draft of pending due. They have asked for a written speech but whatever I will say, I will say spontaneously at the meeting," Mamata said.

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