"Resistance Will Continue": Rahul Gandhi Hosts High Tea For INDIA Bloc
"Resistance Will Continue": Rahul Gandhi Hosts High Tea For INDIA Bloc
M.U.H
13/10/202619
New Delhi: In an attempt to keep up the pressure on the Centre over the Gyanesh Kumar issue, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi hosted high tea for leaders from the INDIA bloc as well as student bodies on Tuesday.
The tea huddle was held at the Congress MP's 5, Sunehri Bagh Road residence in Delhi.
A post on X by Gandhi indicated that the Congress has decided to join forces with others, beyond the INDIA bloc, on the issue to avoid the protests becoming fragmented. There was, however, no mention of the Cockroach Janta Party.
"Today I have invited the leaders of the INDIA alliance, opposition MPs, student organisations, and people from civil society to my home for tea. In this people's movement to protect democracy, we are all together - and this movement will continue relentlessly. After tea, we will all come together and present our case in front of the media," he wrote.
"All protests are one. #Unity," he added.
In a press conference after the meeting, Gandhi, flanked by his sister Priyanka Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut, Mamata All India Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose, All India Students' Association (AISA) Neha Bora and others, said the Opposition's protests are aimed at the "restoration of democracy" in India.
"We are standing here together, as one. There are no parallel protests, there is one singular protest. We are fighting together to restore genuine democratic rule in this country... The government has decided that Jantar Mantar can no longer be used to express democratic feelings and we are going to challenge that idea," he said.
"Gyanesh Kumar and others need to understand that the net is closing around them. Yesterday you saw an expression not of political parties but of the people of India... We will fight to the end to restore democratic processes in this country. The political resistance will continue; the people's resistance will continue and will triumph," the Leader of the Opposition added.
Supreme Court Petition
The meeting comes a day after Opposition members and student leaders, including Bora, carried out a 'March for Democracy'.
Gandhi took part in the march to the Supreme Court, along with Kharge, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata All India Trinamool Congress Chairperson Mamata Banerjee, RJD Working President Tejashwi Yadav, the CPI's D Raja, CPI(M)'s MA Baby and the NCP-SP's Supriya Sule.
The petition filed by the Leader of the Opposition and others has made the Election Commission of India, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and other Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi parties to the case.
The plea seeks an examination of the decisions taken regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls, the submission of all records related to the procedure, the rollback of changes made to Form 6 for enrolling new electors and an independent audit, among others.
