NEW DELHI: The next coordination meeting of the INDIA bloc parties will be held at Ashok Hotel on December 19, Congress's communications chief Jairam Ramesh said on Friday. The meeting of 26 parties was originally scheduled to be held on the Parliament premises but was moved on account of the clampdown on media access inside the House.
"We were planning to hold the meeting in Parliament but we know that journalists don't have easy access to Parliament these days.
As a result, we decided to move the venue to Ashok," Ramesh said.
Though the fourth meeting of the INDIA bloc was expected to focus on evolving a "core positive agenda", engaging in talks over seat sharing, and holding joint programmes for the alliance partners, it is expected that the Parliament security breach, and the issue of unemployment among youth, is likely to take centrestage in the discussions.
Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, scheduled to be in the national capital from December 17 to 19, is expected to participate, as is Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin.The first coordination meeting of the opposition parties since Congress faced a crushing defeat in the Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh polls is likely to dwell on the theme of unity, 'Main Nahin, Hum (Us, Not I)', which some see as a counter to BJP's PM Narendra Modi-focused campaign as well as Congress's 'unilateral' approach to 'leading' the INDIA bloc.