PM's lunch for BJP, dinner for others, on Friday

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh will host a customary lunch on Friday, ahead of Parliament's monsoon session beginning on Monday, for Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley.

Leader of the Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pawan Kumar Bansal will be part of the lunch

The focus of the lunch is to seek the Opposition's support on Goods and Services Tax, India's most ambitious indirect tax reform yet, and also

to get the nuclear liability bill approved by Parliament.

Also, this meeting would help both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party to understand each other's mindset. Mukherjee generally opens up discussions before the prime minister intervenes, and had already met the BJP leaders about their support for GST.

The prime minister also plans to meet leaders of the two communist parties, as well as other parties over dinner on Friday.