In a major boost for Opposition, a thaw in TMC-Congress ties before Parliament reconvenes

Upbeat after the election results, a resurgent Opposition is coordinating its moves to mount pressure on the BJP-led NDA government to keep in abeyance the three laws that have been enacted to replace the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Evidence Act. The parties are also gearing up to corner the government on the NEET and UGC-NET controversies next week as the 18th Lok Sabha meets for the first time.

Days after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M K Stalin wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah requesting him to keep in abeyance the three laws that will come into effect from July 1, his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday asking him to postpone the implementation of new criminal laws and to place them on the floor of Parliament for “fresh deliberation and scrutiny”. She has also urged Modi to “halt and review the whole subject anew”.

This comes at a time when there is significant improvement in the ties between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Sources said senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram met Mamata at the West Bengal state secretariat on Thursday. Although members of the INDIA bloc, the TMC and the Congress contested against each other in the recently held Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal.

With West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury no longer the Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, sources in the TMC said the floor coordination between the two parties in Parliament would improve. A fierce Mamata critic, Chowdhury lost the elections this time to the TMC in his once-stronghold Baharampur. The TMC held him singularly responsible for pushing the Congress into embracing the Left