New Delhi: INDIA bloc leaders Sunday moved in an open canter from the Minto Road-Connaught Place junction towards the Ramlila Maidan where they will hold a rally, scaling up their agitation against alleged “vote chori” and to press for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, TMC’s Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, CPI(M)’s MA Baby, CPI’s D Raja, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, JKNC’s Frooq Abdullah, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, among others, reached Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence, from where they proceeded to Minto Road in open vehicles.
From there, along with other leaders, they slowly moved towards Ramlila Maidan under the “Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao’ march, with a crowd of supporters and workers walking alongside.
Amid a sea of flags and banners against Kumar and the Modi government over the issue of “vote chori”, the procession made its way slowly from the Minto Road-Connaught Place junction.
Crowd swelled at the protest venue of Ramlila Maidan at around 1:30 PM, with supporters and party workers of the INDIA bloc parties, as well as their youth and student organisations, displaying placards and raising slogans against the SIR exerciseand demanding the resignation of Kumar.
Many supporters arrived in Delhi Sunday morning, while several others had reached the national capital Saturday or earlier as parties mobilised their cadres from different states for the protest.
This comes a day after the INDIA bloc carried out a symbolic “public impeachment” of Chief Election Commissioner Kumar, accusing him of deleting votes to steal elections and demanding that he be tried in court for treason and jailed.
In an unprecedented event, opposition MPs and leaders, joined by civil society members, passed a resolution to “impeach” Kumar at a meeting presided over by former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar in a setting resembling Parliament proceedings at the lawns of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s 10, Rajaji Marg residence here.
