mumbai

Updated: Jul 24, 2017 22:02 IST

A day after a split between the opposition parties ahead of the monsoon session, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party decided to bury the hatchet and proposed to hold a congratulatory motion on three separate days to felicitate their leaders on their parliamentary careers.

The motion will recognize the contribution of NCP chief Sharad Pawar on August 5, while a tribute to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi will be paid on August 9 — August Kranti day. The motion will also praise the contribution of other dignitaries, including Deendayal Upadhyay, Nanasaheb Deshmukh and Balaseheb Desai, on August 10.

After the NCP boycotted the joint meeting of the opposition parties to chalk out a strategy for the session, and held a press meet separately on Sunday, bringing the split to the fore. This helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s confidence, which had seemingly taken a beating with the current agrarian crisis and alleged financial irregularities in housing schemes. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had ridiculed the Opposition saying that it was the first instance in history that the opposition was holding two separate press conferences.

NCP had insisted that Pawar’s name be kept first in the motion, while Congress had given a letter to the state legislature urging it to follow protocol and put Indira Gandhi’s name up front as she was Prime Minister for 11 years.

However, on the first day of the monsoon session on Monday, both the opposition parties came with a fresh solution. After a round of the meetings between senior leaders from both parties, the chairman of the legislative council, Speaker of the Assembly and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, the decision to hold the motion obn three different days was taken.

The opposition has decided to put up a united front in the state legislature from Tuesday to corner the government over the loan waiver. “The ruling party is moving a motion to congratulate the government for announcing the loan waiver. We will corner it over poor handling of the agrarian crisis,” said a Congress leader.

In a joint press briefing by Congress and NCP leaders Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Dhananjy Munde and Sunil Tatkare, the parties said that they had differences but no dispute. “We amicably resolved it. There was no need of the ruling party’s intervention,” Vikhe Patil said.

NCP leaders, however, said that they had succeeded in keeping their leader Sharad Pawar’s name first for the felicitation. Members of both parties fought over which of their leaders should be named first in the congratulatory motion, slated to be introduced in the state legislature on August 5. The motion is scheduled to be moved to praise the parliamentary contribution of the leaders from various parties.