By Rahil Nora Chopra
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday hosted a dinner for leaders of 25 INDIA bloc parties at his Sunehri Bagh residence in Delhi, where he showed them a presentation alleging fraud in the Lok Sabha voter rolls in a constituency in Karnataka and said that after Maharashtra, Karnataka and Haryana, the BJP and the Election Commission will definitely try to steal votes in the upcoming polls in Bihar. The aim of the gathering was entirely on the alleged discrepancies in the voter list and SIR in Bihar. The INDIA bloc parties decided to march to Election Commission of India(ECI) office on August 11 to protest against the controversial special intensive revision of voter rolls in Bihar. In a post on Facebook, Rahul Gandhi said, “I laid out BJP-EC’s #VoteChori blueprint before INDIA alliance leaders tonight. INDIA is united, determined, and ready to defend democracy.”. The event lived up to its high-profile billing, with leading lights of the INDIA bloc like Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah, Uddhav Thackeray and Aditya Thackeray, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, Abhishek Banerjee, TR Baalu, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Mahua Majhi, MA Baby (CPM) and Mehbooba Mufti turning up for the event. Also present were KC Venugopal, D Raja of CPI, NK Premachandran of RSP, Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal of IUML, Mukesh Sahani (VIP), Kamal Haasan, Jose Mani, PK Kunhalikutty, Sanjay Raut, Derek O’Brien, chief ministers Siddaramaiah, Revanth Reddy and Sukhwinder Sukhu, Tiruchi Siva, Ramgopal Yadav, Supriya Sule, Kanimozhi and Dimple Yadav.
NARENDRA MODI AND J P NADDA HAVE BEEN AUTHORISED BY NDA TO CHOOSE VP CANDIDATE
The Election Commission issued the notification for the election to the post of Vice President, commencing the nomination process. The election is scheduled to be held on September 9. As per the notification, August 21 is the last date for filing nominations. The scrutiny of nomination papers will take place on August 22, while August 25 is the deadline for candidates to withdraw from the race. The National Democratic Alliance on Thursday authorised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president J P Nadda to pick the ruling bloc’s vice presidential candidate, A meeting of key BJP leaders and their allies was held at the Parliament complex where the decision was taken. Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah besides Nadda, JD(U)’s Lalan Singh, Shiv Sena’s Shrikant Shinde, TDP’s Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, and Chirag Paswan of LJP (Ram Vilas) were among those who attended the meeting. Several names of the leaders have been making rounds in political circles for the post. They include Lieutenant Governor of J&K Manoj Sinha, Defence minister Rajnath Singh, Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena and JD(U) Rajya Sabha MP Ram Nath Thakur. In a significant political move, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde declared his unconditional support for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the upcoming Vice Presidential election. The election is set to be a keen contest with the Congress-led Opposition likely to field a common candidate to take on the BJP-led NDA which has the numbers on its side.
NDA PARTNERS BEGIN SEAT SHARING TALKS FOR BIHAR ASSEMBLY POLLS
The political activity in Bihar is gearing up as the seat-sharing discussions within the National Democratic Alliance of the BJP are taking place . The Janata Dal (United), the Lok Janshakti Party and other smaller parties are set to do a tightrope walk for the ruling alliance. The BJP is learnt to be aiming 116 seats to contest for itself in the 243-member Assembly. In the polls held in 2020, the BJP bagged 74 of the 110 seats it contested. The JD(U), on the other hand, could only win 43 of the 115 seats it fielded candidates. The BJP’s push for a larger share of the seats in Bihar is based on its assessment that the JD(U)’s vote bank among Muslims, EBCs and Mahadalits was eroding along with its organizational strength. According to NDA sources, the JD(U) is insisting on 50:50 formula. While the Chirag Paswan’s party had 100 percent strike rate in Lok Sabha polls, winning all five seats, it may ask for nearly 30 to 35 seats while HAM and RLM are likely to get 6 and 4 seats respectively.. Now BJP has a stiff challenge to reach a consensus on seat-sharing with JD(U), LJP and other smaller parties.
AAP PARTICIPATES IN INDIA BLOC MEDIA MEET, THOUGH NOT A MEMBER NOW
AAP may have left I.N.D.I.A. bloc but the Arvind Kejriwal-led party sent its Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak on Wednesday to join the joint press conference by Opposition parties against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and other states. While Sandeep Pathak addressed the press conference in the presence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal, Samajwadi Party’s Javed Ali Khan, DMK’s Tiruchi Siva, RJD’s Manoj K Jha and among others. However, the AAP sources cleared the air and told that Pathak’s presence should not be signalled as the party’s return to the alliance and they stressed that their party stood firmly with the Opposition in resisting the undemocratic and unconstitutional revision of electoral rolls. After Delhi Assembly elections, AAP has started keeping a distance from the I.N.D.I.A. bloc as the alliance leader Congress had fought against it. AAP announced expansion plans and has been aggressively active in Gujarat and other states. AAP has also not been attending I.N.D.I.A. floor leaders meeting to finalise Parliamentary strategy, though it has been part of the Opposition protest against the SIR inside the House. However, the party has also not participated in the protest by I.N.D.I.A. in Parliament House complex.
RAHUL GANDHI WILL BE THE MAIN CAMPAIGNER OF INDIA BLOC IN BIHAR POLLS
Leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi will be the top campaigner for INDIA Bloc in the coming assembly elections in Bihar. Rahul has successfully gained immense popularity amongst OBC, Dalits and Muslims in the state. Rahul Gandhi is frequently making visit to the state and will set out on the ‘Matdata Adhikar (voters’ rights) Yatra’ in Bihar in three phases covering 30 districts from August 17. The Congress leader is likely to commence his journey from Sasaram, district headquarters of Rohtas. Senior Congress leaders and Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) leaders are likely to join Rahul Gandhi at various places over the course of the yatra in the poll-bound State. Earlier, Rahul also engaged with the audience during the screening of the film Phule at an INOX theatre in Patna, as part of his outreach highlighting social justice issues. On July 9, Rahul had led a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) march to the Election Commission’s office in Patna to protest the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Raising the slogan “Votebandi ke khilaf, Bihar ka dahad (Bihar’s roar against vote ban)”. (IPA Service)
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