INDIA bloc parties hold online meeting ahead of Monsoon session
New Delhi, Jul 19 (PTI): INDIA bloc parties on Saturday held deliberations at an online meeting to reach a consensus on issues that they would raise to corner the government during Parliament's Monsoon session beginning July 21 and convey a message of unity.
Twenty-four political parties, including the Congress, TMC, DMK, RJD, SP, NCP-SP, Shiv Sena (UBT), JMM, CPI-M, CPI, CPI-ML, Forward Bloc, IUML and Kerala Congress, participated in the discussions.
The meeting came ahead of the Monsoon session, which begins on Monday. The opposition grouping met after a long gap as they jointly deliberated on the country's political situation.
"Leaders of 24 political parties belonging to the INDIA group have just begun their online pre-Parliament meeting," AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X after the meeting began.
The meeting was attended by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, NCP (SP)'s Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray (SS-UBT), Abhishek Banerjee (TMC), Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Tiruchi Siva (DMK) M A Baby of CPI-M, D Raja (CPI), CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, among others.
The leaders deliberated on a host of key issues, including the Election Commission's special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar, the demand for a discussion on the Pahalgam attack, and Operation Sindoor.
The opposition parties are raising strong objections to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and are demanding that it be scrapped now, as assembly elections are slated in the next few weeks there. They have also been demanding answers on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor and the losses that the country has suffered during it.
US President Donald Trump's claims of bringing about a halt in hostilities between India and Pakistan, and the push to impeach Justice Yashwant Varma, who is embroiled in a row following the discovery of burnt wads of currency at his residence after a fire incident, are also likely to feature in the discussions.
During the Parliament session, the top Congress leadership has resolved to raise issues such as the demand for the restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and rising atrocities against women in the country.
The opposition party has also decided to raise farmers' problems, the issues of rising unemployment, safety and security of the country and the Ahmedabad air crash during the session.
Sonia Gandhi had convened a meeting of the party's parliamentary strategy group at her 10, Janpath residence here on Tuesday evening.
Leaders of 24 political parties belonging to the INDIA group have just begun their online pre-Parliament meeting. pic.twitter.com/j5HspeWktu
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Rahul Gandhi demands 'clean, pure' voter list; says 'vote theft' issue will explode soon
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New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Opposition is protesting for the right to vote for every Indian and demanded a "clean and pure" voter list, asserting that the issue of alleged irregularities pointed out by him will "explode" soon as it is not related to a single constituency but the whole country.
Indicating that he would not submit a signed affidavit as sought by the Election Commission, Gandhi asserted that the data analysed by the Congress to provide "proof" of "vote theft" is taken from the EC website.
"This is their data. It is not my data that I should sign. It is their data only and has been taken from their website. This is only a move to distract," he told reporters.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, who participated in a protest march by the opposition on the "vote theft" issue, said the Election Commission is "silent" as the truth is before the entire nation after his charge that over one lakh votes in an assembly constituency in Karnataka were found to be fake in a research conducted by his party.
"Another thing I want to tell is that this has not just happened in Bangalore, but in different constituencies across the country, and the Election Commission knows this. The EC knows that this data will explode. What it is trying to control and hide, we will bring it out, and it will explode. The EC knows this," he told reporters.
Gandhi was briefly detained along with others as police stopped the protest march by opposition MPs from Parliament House to the EC office.
"They (EC) cannot talk as the truth is before the entire nation," the Congress leader said as he was being taken away in a bus by the police.
"This fight is not political, but for saving the Constitution," he asserted.
This fight is for 'one man, one vote' and we want a clean, pure voter list," the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha added.
He said all the MPs of the INDIA alliance were stopped and taken into custody when they were going to meet the Election Commission.
"The truth of 'vote theft' is now before the country. This fight is not political; it is a fight to protect democracy, the Constitution, and the right to ‘one person, one vote’.
"The united opposition and every voter in the country demand a clean and transparent voter list. And, we will secure this right at all costs," Gandhi claimed in a post on X later.
Gandhi had on Thursday cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim that over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" through five types of manipulation in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka. He alleged there were 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single-address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 of new voters.
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