Anti-CEC protest: Amid INDIA bloc sit-in at Vijay Chowk, delegation meets with President
This comes after the Opposition leaders, led by Rahul Gandhi, marched from Parliament and were stopped by the Delhi Police at Vijay Chowk, from where they staged a sit-in protest
This comes after the Opposition leaders, led by Rahul Gandhi, marched from Parliament and were stopped by the Delhi Police at Vijay Chowk, from where they staged a sit-in protest.
This comes after the Opposition leaders, led by Rahul Gandhi, marched from Parliament and were stopped by the Delhi Police at Vijay Chowk, from where they staged a sit-in protest.
This comes after the Opposition leaders, led by Rahul Gandhi, marched from Parliament and were stopped by the Delhi Police at Vijay Chowk, from where they staged a sit-in protest.
In the first comments from the Opposition since an INDIA bloc delegation met with President Droupadi Murmu on Friday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that the former "in no way denied what we said, questioned what we said, or argued what we said".
"She accepted our statement and then told us that we needed to provide her with proof of 'election chori' ... This same group of people will be very happy to present the evidence of 'election chori' that we have collected to the President of India when she is ready to accept it," he added, calling the meeting "unbelievable".
The 10-member delegation had met with President Droupadi Murmu to submit a memorandum seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over his alleged role in vote theft during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.
This comes after the Opposition leaders, led by Rahul Gandhi, marched from Parliament and were stopped by the Delhi Police at Vijay Chowk, from where they staged a sit-in protest.
The delegation that was allowed to meet the President included Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata All India Trinamool Congress (MAITC) chief Mamata Banerjee, CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby, CPI general secretary D. Raja, Samajwadi Party leader Rajeev Rai, NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah, RJD MP Manoj Jha, and VCK leader Thol. Thirumavalavan.
“First, we will meet the President and submit a memorandum outlining our suggestions for comprehensive electoral reforms, including a return to paper ballots," D. Raja told PTI, reiterating that Kumar had to resign.
Other demands made by the memorandum include suspending the SIR and the restoration of the names of alleged 13.8 crore deleted people to the electoral rolls.
"Gyanesh Kumar kayar hai, pura General Dyer hai (Gyanesh Kumar is a coward, a complete General Dyer)," was one of the many slogans that could be heard at the Vojay Chowk protests, as the demand for Kumar's resignation grows.
Congress MPs and leaders like Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Karnataka CM D.K. Shivakumar, K.C. Venugopal, and Gaurav Gogoi were among the vocal crowd at Vijay Chowk, alongside MAITC MP Mahua Moitra, and leaders from other Opposition parties.
The Vijay Chowk sit-in protests also come just a day before planned agitations by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and other student organisations like the All India Students' Association (AISA) at Delhi's Jantar Mantar on October 10.
Ahead of the October 10 protests, the Delhi government had also proposed blanket bans on internet and public transport facilities, which had sparked a separate row in the Supreme Court over the impact of the moves on the general public.