NEW DELHI, Aug 3: For the first time in 14 months, the leaders of all the alliance partners of the opposition INDIA bloc are expected to meet together at one place outside Parliament when they are set to gather at the Delhi residence of the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday.
Mr Gandhi has convened the meeting to discuss the combined opposition strategy on the “Special Intensive Revision” of the voters’ list in Bihar, an exercise likely to be extended to other states slated to go to polls soon including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, both non-BJP ruled states.
Apart from Parliament floor strategy meetings, the last time the INDIA bloc leaders physically sat across the table from each other was on June 1, 2024, just three days before the Lok Sabha election results were declared, at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence. On July 19, 2024, the bloc had a virtual meeting on the results.
Thursday’s dinner meeting will be followed the next day by a joint protest march to Election Commission’s headquarters in the Capital. The SIR has acted as glue to bring the bloc back together after a tumultuous year of speaking out in separate, and sometimes contradictory, voices.
The Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav emphasised the importance of protesting against the SIR together and said, “We can protect the temple of democracy [that is, Parliament] only if we can enter it,” he said. Terming the SIR a systematic method to blunt the Opposition’s strength, he said it was essential that the exercise be opposed every step of the way.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader Manoj K. Jha said the INDIA bloc was primarily constituted for elections, and while it was a strong idea, it would be wrong to assume that the bloc has to consult each other 24×7. “Instead of Special Intensive Revision, this exercise by the EC should be called ‘special intensive deletion.’ This is an issue that affects every citizen of the country; thus, it is imperative for the INDIA bloc to stand by the country,” Mr Jha said.
He added that while he would not go to the extent of saying that the exercise was aimed only at excluding voters who may vote for the Opposition, the fact remains that every time Opposition leaders point out a problem, the BJP comes to the EC’s defence. “It is as if only the BJP understands the intent of this exercise,” Mr Jha said.
The top leadership of the majority of the INDIA bloc partners are expected to be present at the dinner at Mr Gandhi’s residence and the protest march the following day. The Aam Aadmi Party, which has declared that it is not part of the bloc anymore, is likely to skip both events, but they will continue to support the agitation against the SIR inside the Parliament.
The Opposition is going to press again for a debate on the issue in Parliament at the meeting of the Business Advisory Committees of both Houses, which usually has to be held at the beginning of the week. “The SIR ‘vote chori (theft)’ as a subject can easily be discussed in both Houses. BJP is scared. Next week, we will give the shaky Modi coalition a tutorial in Parliament and teach them how it can be discussed,” the Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha Parliamentary Party leader Derek O’Brien said.
The government pulled out a precedent, from the tenure of the Lok Sabha’s longest serving Speaker Balram Jakhar, who had ruled that the Election Commission, which is a Constitutional body, cannot be discussed in the Parliament. “This is a facetious argument. We are not asking for a discussion on the Election Commission, we are demanding for a debate on an administrative decision taken by the poll panel, which right now is underway in Bihar, and will be carried out across the country,” the Congress whip in the Lok Sabha, Manickam Tagore, said.
(Manas Dasgupta)