New Delhi, July 18: Conscious of its ties with coalition partner PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has not invited National Conference president Omar Abdullah to the meeting of opposition leaders convened by her on July 20 to decide floor coordination in the monsoon session of Parliament. The opposition leaders meeting, the first after the brainstorming camp of senior Congress leaders where the party spoke of a need for a secular coalition, 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.
"I don't think he has been invited. His party has only now come out of the BJP-led NDA," highly placed party sources said when asked whether Abdullah's name was on the list of invitees. 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 sources, however, 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