'Didn't sign INDIA bloc letter as I was representing India'
MUMBAI, June 6 -- After her return from a four-country tour as part of India's global outreach against terrorism following Operation Sindoor, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MP Supriya Sule said on Thursday that she could not sign the letter to participate in the opposition INDIA coalition's meet to prepare to debate India's action post the Pahalgam attack at a special session in the Parliament, as in doing so both she and her party would at once come across as double-faced.
"On the one hand, [seven] delegations were sent abroad to defend India's post-Pahalgam retaliation, while on the other hand, we are setting about to debate the same in Parliament," Sule said in Mumbai.
The INDIA coalition - led by Congress -- had demanded a special session in the Parliament to discuss developments following the Pahalgam terror attack, on Tuesday. On Wednesday union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju said that the monsoon session of the Parliament will be convened between July 21 and August 12, where the events post-Pahalgam attack can be discussed. Among members of the INDIA coalition, NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar has opposed the demand for the debate. He had said on May 12: "I am not opposed to calling a special session of Parliament but this is a sensitive and serious matter, and proper discussion of such issues isn't possible in Parliament. In such circumstances, maintaining confidentiality serves national interest." On Thursday, Sule fortified her father's stand. "For Pawar saheb, it's country first, then the state followed by party and family," she emphasized.
She also questioned the timing of the Opposition's demand, when most of its party leaders were on tour as spokespersons for India's action. "We did not sign the (Opposition's) letter demanding a special session because I had requested a senior Congress leader (Sule refused to divulge the name) that we should wait for four to five days, by when our trips would have been completed and then we could have raised the demand," said the NCP (SP) working president, adding that she was ready to participate in the INDIA coalition's next meeting and the debate where she would ask "hard questions on internal security". Sharing her experience of her tour to four countries -- Qatar, South Africa, Ethiopia and Egypt, for 13 days - the Baramati MP mentioned how right from the first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh and now PM Modi have taken their friendships forward.
When asked to express her view on the possible reunification of the Thackeray cousins, Sule said, "It would be beneficial for the state if both brothers come together and work with full force." She however, chose not to react to similar speculations about the two NCP factions. "There is no discussion or any proposal," she said....
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