Members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will meet for dinner at Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s residence on August 7, sources said on Sunday.
The announcement of the August 7, meeting comes a day after the former Congress president claimed that at least 70 to 80 Lok Sabha seats might have been rigged in the 2024 general elections while addressing the party’s annual legal conclave on Saturday.
The ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, alleged voter list manipulation in Maharashtra, Operation Sindoor, the India-US trade deal and tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump are expected to be discussed during the dinner meeting.
This will be the INDIA bloc’s second gathering since the start of the Parliament monsoon session. During a virtual meeting held on July 19, at least 24 members participated, including NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said these concerns have been consistently raised by Opposition parties in Parliament, with a 16-hour marathon debate on Operation Sindoor already taking place in both Houses.
Criticising the Centre for being “absolutely unwilling to be held accountable”, the UBT leader told the media, “Whether it is the Pahalgam terror attack, we haven’t seen any accountability coming from the Home Ministry. Regarding Operation Sindoor, which the PM, on the Floor of the House, said is ongoing, yet we see them playing cricket matches together for money over the blood of the people of India. Then we have issues such as SIR.”
Referring to the earlier allegations made by the Lok Sabha LoP, she demanded answers from the Election Commission over the deletion of voters in Bihar and the alleged addition of voters in Maharashtra.
“Rahul Gandhi had written about Maharashtra elections. We have been raising concerns about the Maharashtra election process, how 45 lakh voters were added, how 70 lakh voters ended up voting at the last hour. These are questions the ECI needs to answer. SIR, on the basis of which over 60 names have been deleted — on what grounds? Migrants who have gone to another state but have their vote in Bihar will return to find that they no longer have their vote. They are effectively disenfranchised. These are burning issues of the country which we will raise,” she added.
In Jammu and Kashmir, National Conference (NC) leader Farooq Abdullah has also confirmed his attendance at the dinner. He said on 2 August (Saturday) that he would discuss the Bihar SIR during the meeting, which he claimed has been used to ensure the ruling BJP-JD(U) alliance wins the state assembly polls.
“The elections in Bihar already have an arrangement that the party currently in power will win. I am going to visit him (Rahul Gandhi); the leaders have been called on 7 August. I will find out (about the Congress leader’s allegations),” Farooq Abdullah told reporters in Jammu.
Communist Party leader D Raja has also said that the Lok Sabha LoP has been “calling up people” to discuss the matter, but noted that “no particular agenda” has been confirmed yet.
“Rahul Gandhi has been calling up people and informing them. Let us see what will be the agenda, what issues will be discussed, we will have to wait and see. The UPA leaders are being called; no particular agenda has been mentioned,” D Raja told the reporters.
In a renewed attack on the Election Commission of India, Rahul Gandhi on 2 August alleged that India’s election system is “already dead” and claimed that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls were “rigged” — insisting he has proof to back the charge.
Addressing the party’s annual legal conclave titled Constitutional Challenges – Perspectives & Pathways, Gandhi said, “The truth is that the election system in India is already dead. The Prime Minister of India holds office with a very slim majority. If 15 seats were rigged — we suspect that the number is over 70 to 80 — he would not have been the Prime Minister of India. We are going to prove to you in the coming few days how a Lok Sabha election can be rigged and was rigged.”
He highlighted a six-month Congress investigation which, he claimed, shows that the Election Commission of India “doesn’t exist” and has “disappeared”. Referring to documents from the EC, Gandhi said Congress found that nearly 1.5 lakh of the 6.5 lakh people who voted in the Lok Sabha polls were “fake”.
Meanwhile, the ECI said on Saturday that the Lok Sabha LoP has yet to respond to its letter from June regarding his allegations of election rigging in the Maharashtra Assembly polls. The poll body said that on 12 June, Rahul Gandhi had been invited for an interaction regarding the allegations.
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