NEW DELHI: The INDIA bloc, led by the Congress, has announced a mega action plan to take forward its campaign against “vote chori” and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The key stakeholders of the INDIA bloc met today in the national capital to chalk out a roadmap for nationwide protests against the Election Commission’s “flawed and partisan” approach.The INDIA bloc’s renewed offensive comes days after an Indian Express report citing internal differences within the Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding the implementation of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and modifications to voter registration processes. The opposition parties’ meeting also comes in the backdrop of successful mobilisation programmed led by the Cockroach Janata Party against NEET paper leak, which brought the GenZ to the streets and forced the government to accept their demands.After hours long deliberations, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge unveiled the opposition’s blueprint for intensified demonstrations against EC’s ‘malpractices’ and shared details of how the INDIA bloc will stand up against electoral irregularities.
INDIA bloc’s action blueprint
Here is what the INDIA bloc allies decided on their action plan against EC’s ‘partisan approach and malpractices’
- ‘Save Democracy March’ in each district from October 2 to 8
- On October 6, opposition MPs’ march to Election Commission headqaurters
- Five rallies across India in October-November
- Mega rally in Delhi on November 1 to explain ‘
vote chori ’ by EC - Appeal to Supreme Court to expedite pending cases pertaining to SIR and other electoral malpractices
- Detailed presentation before President Droupadi Murmu on ‘compromised’ electoral process
INDIA bloc’s demands
Then there was also a list of 6 demands which the opposition parties announced. It included
- Return to voting by ballot paper instead of EVMs
- Pre-SIR electoral roll for all future elections
- Due reasoning and effective appeal mechanism before any legitimate voter is removed from roll
- Protection of eligible voters from exclusion caused by administrative failures, inadequate documentation or lack of awareness
- Simple and accessible voter registration for our young citizens
- Maintaining institutional accountability and an Election Commission that commands confidence across political spectrum
So far, so good. But the problem is that all these demands have already been raised by various opposition parties from time to time without any success. We have heard several leaders in the past demanding a return to ballot paper. This has not happened and is unlikely to happen.The fight over alleged discrepancies in the SIR process has been an ongoing one. We have seen Rahul Gandhi and other regional leaders raise the issue. But none of them have managed to sustain the momentum or stop the process. Even the courts have refused to back their allegations and have not stopped the SIR process.
Effective action plan?
Now, let’s focus on the action plan.Protests at district level, march to Election Commission’s office, rallies, appeal in Supreme Court – all make for good optics, but can they bring about enough pressure?The Congress, which is leading the opposition block, has been consistent in raising these issues, but has failed to keep the momentum going. Rahul Gandhi has addressed several press conferences in the last two years leading the charge against the Election Commission and Gyanesh Kumar. His yatra in Bihar ahead of assembly elections last year brought the issue to centre stage but once again the momentum did not sustain.Clearly, the Congress and the other opposition parties need to think how to run a sustained campaign for mobilisation.
‘Congress raises issues but fails to keep momentum going’
At the CWC meeting held on Tuesday, ahead of today’s INDIA bloc meeting, Rahul Gandhi had claimed that revelations about the Election Commission were now coming out in the open because of the Congress. During the two-and-a-half hour CWC meeting, Rahul pointed out that the Congress had been raising the “vote chori” issue strongly with facts and talked about irregularities in polls in Haryana, Karnataka and Maharashtra but many were sceptical of it.Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha claimed that EVM and voters’ list “match-fixing” of polls was underway in the country and asserted that his party should not budge from the path of “virodh” (opposing) as well as “pratirodh” (resistance) against it from streets to Parliament.Rahul Verma, political scientist and a Fellow at New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research, feels that the Congress needs to be persistent and have patience.“One of the reasons why the congress fails to do mobilization is that they raise important issues but are not persistent. They need to have patience. Congress has been talking about all the important issues but did not sit on a protest like the CJP,” Rahul Verma says.“Even the CJP would not have thought of the success they eventually got. They continued sitting on protest even when there was little traction in their favour. Eventually, they managed to mobilise a lot of support and forced the government to concede to their demands,” Rahul Verma adds.
BJP targets opposition unity, attacks Rahul
If the INDIA bloc meeting was about showcasing opposition unity, well the purpose was at best half achieved. There were more questions on INDIA bloc’s united presence than answers. The BJP has aggressively highlighted the division within the opposition ranks. With several regional parties openly against the Congress, the BJP leaders have been quick to question Rahul Gandhi’s acceptance as the leader of the opposition block.BJP national media incharge Ashish Usha Agarwal questioned Rahul Gandhi’s leadership of the INDIA bloc and said the outcomes of the INDIA bloc meeting on Wednesday were “zero vision, 100 per cent frustration.The BJP claimed that the meeting was an advance excuse for poll defeats, with the leaders of the opposition grouping rejecting Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.“The INDI Alliance fell apart even before the meeting took place. The DMK did not attend the meeting. Akhilesh was busy elsewhere. The AAP had already declined,” Union minister
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Shivraj Singh Chouhan said at a press conference at the BJP headquarters.“Why is this happening? It is because the INDI Alliance is simply not willing to accept Rahul Gandhi as its leader. His leadership is not being accepted; that is why they are not even showing up,” Chouhan said, contending that Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav would have come to attend the meeting if it was “really so important.”Chouhan claimed that the opposition INDIA bloc is crumbling. “No matter how many times they (Congress) try to re-launch Rahul Gandhi, the INDIA bloc does not consider him their leader,” he said.Clearly, the opposition needs to do things differently. When Mamata Banerjee said the opposition had taken these matters to the Election Commission and the Supreme Court and “knocked on every possible door,” it was an admission of the fact that the old ways had failed. The meeting today discussed the need for mobilisation on the ground by involving the civil society along with the political fight. The Congress has kept an arm’s distance from the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP). But perhaps it is time for the Congress to course correct and take a leaf out of the CJP’s successful mobilisation programme.
