All major Opposition leaders – Sonia Gandhi, son Rahul, daughter Priyanka, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, Uddhav Thackerary, son Aditya, Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Champai Soren – came together at ‘Loktantra Bachao Rally’ to press for the release of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Jharkhand’s former CM Hemant Soren.
Kejriwal’s March 21 arrest is the immediate trigger for the entire Opposition to come together, but the finer optics of the rally went far beyond. For starters, Trinamool Congress, which could not hammer out a seat-sharing pact with the Congress in West Bengal, came out strongly in support of the INDIA bloc, with leader Derek O’Brien stating that his party “was, is and will be with INDIA bloc”. Sonia, who has been keeping away from most public engagements, made a rare appearance and sat next to Kejriwal’s wife Sunita to show her support. Two chairs were kept empty on the stage for Kejriwal and Soren to emphasise that Opposition leaders’ arrest by central investigative agencies was the central point of the rally.
The Opposition put forth following demands to the Election Commission of India: A level playing field before elections, efforts to forcefully scuttle Opposition parties’ finances should be immediately stopped, action by ED, CBI and the Income-Tax department should be stopped and a Supreme Court-monitored special investigation team should probe the electoral bonds scheme.
Wife reads Kejriwal message
The rally, which was organised by AAP to garner support for its jailed national convenor, saw emotions run high when Sunita carried a message from her husband and read it out. Striking an instant chord with the crowd, she said BJP wanted her husband to resign as CM and asked the crowd if he should. As supporters responded in the negative, Sunita said she believed her husband was a “lion” and “they won’t be able to keep him in jail for too long”. Her voice choked with emotion as she said that though her husband had not taken the permission of other INDIA bloc partners, he wanted to give six guarantees on behalf of the Opposition.
The guarantees included 24×7 power across the country, free electricity to the poor, constructing excellent government schools in every village and neighbourhood, establishing mohalla clinic in every village, ensuring fair price for crops to farmers as given in Swaminathan Commission report and full statehood for Delhi.
MODI trying to fix polls: Rahul
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi warned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was desperately trying to “fix” elections, the way sometimes cricket matches are fixed. Pointing out the way cricket matches are fixed by various methods like appointing umpires of choice, buying out players and intimidating captains, same way Modi appointed election commissioners of his choice, was trying to pressurise judiciary and had jailed two chief ministers, Soren and Kejriwal, just ahead of elections. He said all bank accounts of Congress had been frozen right at the start of the election process in a clear attempt to prevent it from campaigning.
Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray gave a catchy slogan to counter BJP’s call of “is baar chaar sau paar”. He said this time it should be “is baar BJP tadi paar” (throw out BJP this time). Tejashwi said the way BJP was showing confidence that it would cross 400, it seemed that it had already tampered with electronic voting machines (EVMs). The rally came on a day Modi flagged off BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh, however, appeared confident. “I have heard that people from Delhi are outside today somewhere. This is an indication of the times to come. People will throw him out of Delhi very soon,” he said.
