New Delhi, July 20: Fresh from the Shimla decision to forge a secular coalition, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has convened a meeting of Opposition leaders here to decide on floor coordination in the monsoon session of Parliament but National Conference has not been invited. "Frankly, we have not invited (Omar Abdullah)," Congress spokesman S Jaipal Reddy told reporters.
The Congress action to keep away the NC from the meet was apparently dictated by ties with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir.
The meeting is being attended by several leaders including NCP president Sharad Pawar, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Prasad Yadav of RJD and CPI-M veteran Somnath Chatterjee.
RLD leader Ajit Singh, who had come out of the NDA had participated in the opposition efforts against the BSP-BJP coalition in Uttar Pradesh, is invited. Singh as also former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and Lok Janshakti leader Ram Vilas Paswan have expressed their inability to attend the meeting but had assured the party that they would "go by the consensus" arrived at the meeting.
The party had already made it clear that the meeting, a get together over tea, was for the limited purpose of floor coordination and finalising floor strategy. Bureau Report