Parties in the INDIA bloc will protest in Parliament and outside on Wednesday over what they allege is "discrimination" against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget. The decision was made during a meeting of INDIA bloc floor leaders at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence.
Key attendees included Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress' Pramod Tiwari and Gaurav Gogoi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena 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.
Congress general secretaries K.C. Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh also attended the meeting. "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.