On 16 December, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi led a delegation of senior Congress leaders and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, handing him a memorandum on farmer issues. Along with a list of problems faced by the farmer community post demonetisation, the memorandum also laid down farmers' demands, including loan waiver schemes.
This has, however, not gone down well with leaders of other Opposition parties. Ever since the implementation of demonetisation, the Opposition has been united in its protest against the move, voicing grievances collectively.
Also read - Rahul Gandhi leads Congress delegation voicing farmer's issues, hands over memorandum to PM Modi
Rahul Gandhi's meeting with PM Modi, leading a delegation comprising solely of Congress leaders has left several Opposition leaders miffed. So much so that the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), JD(U) and the Left, among others, boycotted the march to Rashtrapati Bhavan, to meet President Pranab Mukherjee today.
"The government did not cooperate with our attempts for a discussion in Parliament; it broke the principles of democracy," Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said after the meeting with the President.