New Delhi: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will host a lunch for MPs of the ruling alliance and supporting parties on Monday, a day ahead of the vice presidential election on August 7, official sources said.
Sonia had hosted a similar lunch on July 18, a day ahead of the presidential poll.
The sources said though United Progressive Alliance (UPA) nominee and incumbent Hamid Ansari is ahead of his rival Jaswant Singh, backed by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the lunch would add to the bonhomie among the alliance partners and the parties supporting it from outside, with the month-long Monsoon Session of Parliament starting on August 8.
Besides the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, DMK, Trinamool Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal and the National Conference, who are part of UPA, leaders of parties like the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party will attend the lunch being held at the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi, said the sources.
Indicating her support for Ansari, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has directed her party MPs to attend the luncheon.
Trinamool Congress parliamentary party leader in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandyopadhyay on Sunday said that the party would hold a meeting at 8 pm on Monday to take a decision regarding the vice-presidential poll and finalise the party's strategy for the Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning on August 8.
Government sources claimed Ansari will get support of around 500 votes out of the total 790 votes of parliamentarians who form the electoral college to elect the vice president.
The Left parties are also supporting the UPA nominee.
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