Ahead of Budget session, all-party meet begins

An all-party meeting began at the Parliament on Sunday, ahead of the first Parliament session of the 17th Lok Sabha on June 17 (Monday).

Among those who arrived for the meeting were Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Prahlad Joshi and leader of BJP in Rajya Sabha Thawar Chand Gehlot.

Other leaders cutting across party lines such as -- V Vijayasai Reddy of YSRCP, Derek O'Brien of TMC, Farooq Abdullah of National Conference, NCP's Supriya Sule, Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal (Sonelal), AAP's Sanjay Singh and Jayadev Galla of TDP, arrived for the meeting convened by the government.

After the all-party meet, a meeting of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) leaders will take place in the Parliament later in the evening to discuss strategies for the upcoming session.

BJP parliamentary party executive committee meeting is also scheduled to be held today evening.

On Friday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had held a pre-budget consultation meeting with leading economists ahead of the forthcoming general Budget 2019-20.

This was her sixth pre-Budget consultation meeting with officials and representatives of social sector groups.

The first session of the 17th Lok Sabha will be convened from June 17 to July 26 during which the Union Budget will be presented by the new government on July 5.

On the first two days, new MPs will take oath. The election for the Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha is scheduled to be held on June 19.