Opposition to govt: Anguished over 'blatant politicisation'

Twentyone opposition parties Wednesday expressed anguish over what they alleged was blatant politicisation of the sacrifices of armed forces and urged the government to take the nation into confidence on all measures to protect Indias sovereignty unity and integrityAfter a meeting which lasted over three hours in the Parliament Library the leaders of these parties issued a joint statement expressing concern over the prevailing security situation in the countryAnguished over blatant politicisation of sacrifices of armed forces by the ruling party Urge the government to take the nation into confidence on all measures to protect Indias sovereignty unity integrityNational security must transcend narrow political consideration the joint statement saidThe parties also condemned the dastardly Pulwama terror attack by Pakistansponsored terrorists of JaisheMohammed on February 14 The leaders paid homage to the soldiers killed in the attack and expressed solidarity with the Armed ForcesThe statement also said that the prime minister has regrettably not convened an allparty meeting as per established practiceCongress leader Rahul Gandhi UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi former prime minister Manmohan Singh Congress leaders A K Antony Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel Sharad Pawar NCP Chandrababu Naidu TDP Mamata Banerjee TMC Sharad Yadav LJD T Shiva DMK Sitaram Yechury CPIMSatish Chandra Misra BSP Manoj JhaRJD Sanjay Singh AAP Sudhakar Reddy CPI Danish Ali JDS Shibu SorenJMM Upendra Kushwaha RLSP Ashok Kumar Singh JVM Jitin Ram Manjhi HAM Kodandaram TJS among others participated in the meetingIn the joint statement the parties lauded the Indian Air Forces strike on the terrorist camp on February 26 but also expressed concern on the emerging security situationPost the statement from the MEA regarding targeting of our military installations and loss of one fighter aircraft the leaders condemned the Pakistani misadventure and expressed their deep concern for the safety of our missing pilot Rahul Gandhi said while reading out the statementThe Samajwadi Party did not attend the meeting National Conference leader Omar Abdullah also skipped the meeting In a tweet he said he had requested the opposition to postpone the meeting in light of the developments especially after the news of our pilot being in Pakistani custody but they felt otherwise I chose not to attend as a resultThe Opposition on Tuesday had decided to drop the formulation of the common minimum programme as the agenda for their meeting on Wednesday in view of the prevailing security situation in the countrySenior leaders in the opposition confirmed that in a discussion with the Congress the CPIM and the CPI said that they will only be part of the meeting if the common minimum programme is off the tableWith the change in agenda Left parties joined the meeting It was after the February 13 meeting of opposition leaders the decision to formulate a common minimum programme was mooted which would act as a roadmap to fight the Lok Sabha elections against the BJPCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever