Om Birla to lead Indian Delegation to 206th Session of Governing Council of IPU

The Indian Parliamentary delegation for the 206th Session of the Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will be lead by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla this year. The Extraordinary Virtual Session will be held from November 1 to November  4, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, this year the session is being organised online in place of a full-fledged in-person Statutory Assembly of IPU, an official release stated.

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Agenda includes election of the new president of IPU

The agenda of the virtual session involves the election of the new president of IPU through remote electronic secret ballot as the outgoing President of IPU Gabriela Cuevas Barron MP, Mexico has already completed her term on October 19. The term of the new president of IPU will be from 2020-23, the official statement said. According to the release, there are four candidates in the fray for the election of IPU President- Duarte Pacheco from Portugal, Muhammad Sanjrani from Pakistan, Salma Ataullahjan from Canada and Akmal Saidov from Uzbekistan.

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Indian delegation to cast their votes

The Indian delegation has  Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta and Lok Sabha MP Poonamben Hematbhai Maadam who will participate in the session and will cast their votes. Lok Sabha Secretary-General Snehlata Shrivastava and Rajya Sabha Secretary-General Desh Deepak Verma will also attend the session. Furthermore, Dr Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat is the Secretary to the Delegation.

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(With ANI Inputs)