AAP-RJD excluded from all-party meeting on LAC standoff; Tejashwi asks 'What's criteria?'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday will address an all-party meeting to discuss the situation on the Sino-India border in Ladakh. The virtual conference meeting, presided by PM Modi, will be attended by presidents of various political parties in the country. However, according to senior leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), their party has not been invited for the meeting.

'RJD hasn't received any message so far'

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday night took to Twitter and asked the Defence Ministry and Prime Minister's Office "the criteria" for inviting political parties for the all-party meeting. He said, "I mean the grounds of inclusion/exclusion because our party RJD hasn't received any message so far."

Similarly, AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh tweeted that a "strange ego-ridden" government is being run at the Centre. He said that the Aam Aadmi Party has a government in Delhi and in Punjab it is the main opposition party, adding that it has four parliamentarians across the country but the BJP does not want the opinion of the AAP on any important subject. “The whole country is waiting for what the Prime Minister will speak in the meeting,” he added. 

Among those who have been invited are Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, Maharashtra CM and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray, TMC chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, DMK president MK Stalin among others. 

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This is the first time since the eruption of border tensions in April that the PM has called for an all-party meeting to discuss the conflict. So far, his virtual meetings with opposition leaders have been on the coronavirus pandemic.

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At least 20 Indian Army personnel, including a Colonel rank officer, had lost their lives in the violent face-off in the Galwan valley area of Ladakh on June 15. The violent face-off happened on late evening and the night of June 15 in Ladakh's Galwan Valley as a result of an attempt by the Chinese troops to "unilaterally change" the status quo during de-escalation in Eastern Ladakh and the situation could have been avoided if the agreement at the higher level been scrupulously followed by the Chinese side, India said on June 16.

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