Amid the growing concern over the unity of the opposition parties, the INDIA bloc on Thursday evening showcased its strength as it met to discuss the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in Bihar and the alleged vote theft during 2024 Lok Sabha polls, and also a discussion on the vice presidential election with a small group of leaders.
The meeting took place at the new residence, 5 Ssnuehri Bagh of the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, which was attended by at least 50 leaders from 25 parties.
The meeting was attended by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who came there along with his wife Dimple Yadav and uncle Ram Gopal Yadav. Besides them, DMK’s Kanimozhi, Tiruchi Siva, MNM chief Kamal Haasan, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, NCP-SP chief Sharad Pawar, along with Supriya Sule, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, along with his wife Rashmi and his son Aaditya Thackeray, Trinamool Congress’s Abhishek Bamerjee and Derek O’Brien, among others, were present.
The party leaders said that during the meeting, Rahul Gandhi gave a presentation to the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc leaders about the alleged vote theft during the Lok Sabha 2024 polls.
The sources said that during the meeting, all the opposition party leaders took the matter seriously and agreed to raise it inside and outside Parliament.
The Congress leader then also explained how the SIR exercise being conducted by the poll panel is aimed at removing lakhs of eligible voters from the voter rolls.
The Congress leaders present at the meeting also explained that Rahul Gandhi will kick off ‘Matdata Adhikar Yatra’ from August 17 and that it will go on for 15 days.
The source said that the INDIA bloc leaders were informed that the yatra will begin from Sasaram and cover at least 21 districts of the state, with many Mahagatbandhan alliance partners also joining the yatra.
The source said that the yatra aims to highlight how the voting rights of the backwards, dalits, and minorities are being targeted in the state ahead of the crucial polls and how they are being fed wrong information about the SIR exercise.
During the meeting, the source said that the leaders accepted that the SIR exercise is being carried out just ahead of the crucial assembly polls to remove lakhs of voters to help the BJP.
It was also decided in the meeting to continuously raise questions on the functioning of the Election Commission and make this a big issue in the polls.
The source also said that during the meeting of a few top leaders of some of the parties, it was decided to field an opposition candidate for the vice presidential elections.
The leaders in the meeting opined that, looking at the behavior of the BJP in the last few years, there cannot be a joint candidate with them.
The Election Commission had announced September 9 as the polling day for vice presidential elections, following the surprise resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar on health grounds. The date of filing nomination began on August 7, and the last day of filing nomination is August 21.
The source said that the opposition’s INDIA bloc has now started serious discussion on the vice presidential candidate.
With Rahul Gandhi holding the INDIA bloc meeting at his residence, where Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, CPP chairperson Sonia Gandhi, KC Venugopal and other party leaders, the grand old party has given clear indication that the opposition parties are now in no mood to accept the election results but it now looks forward to raise their demand of transparent and fair elections.
The source said that the United India bloc plans to raise the issue of transparency in the election system and on the fairness of polls, and also the SIR exercise through which lakhs of voters are being removed ahead of crucial assembly polls.
