Day 3 of INDIA bloc protest: Lunch, bus ride and an anti-climax; what next?

After facing obstruction and brutal crackdowns by the Delhi Police for two consecutive days, the Opposition’s INDIA bloc had a rather ‘uneventful’ protest on Thursday (October 8).

The high drama witnessed on the preceding two days of INDIA bloc’s agitation for Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation over the SIR row was all but missing on Thursday as Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi rallied Opposition colleagues to Raj Ghat.

Opposition puts up united front

The precursor to the ‘flash protest’ was the same as Wednesday’s; albeit with a different venue – and menu.

If Wednesday saw Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge hosting INDIA bloc MPs for an all-vegetarian lunch at Janpath’s Sagar Ratna, Thursday had Opposition leaders partaking a more expansive spread, including non-vegetarian fare, at the recently opened branch of Delhi’s Moet’s restaurant in Connaught Place.

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Unlike the Sagar Ratna outing, the Moet’s luncheon also had representation from the Samajwadi Party. Ghosi MP Rajeev Rai, who shared a table with Kharge, Rahul and other INDIA bloc MPs, played down his party’s absence at Wednesday’s lunch and the widely reported rift with the Congress over Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi’s Akashwani Bhawan dharna on October 6.

“There is no rift, the INDIA bloc is united and the SP is fully supporting the protest; there was some miscommunication yesterday, which is why we couldn’t send a representative but we are here today and we will continue this united fight till Gyanesh Kumar resigns and the SIR is completely scrapped,” Rai told reporters.

Rahul vows to fight ‘vote theft’

Lunch done, Rahul, flanked by Kharge, CPM’s John Brittas, RJD’s Manoj Jha, Trinamool’s Abhishek Banerjee and other Opposition MPs, spoke to the waiting media; accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and the CEC of having “hijacked the country through a criminal conspiracy”.

“They have destroyed the Constitution and stolen votes. They will be brought to justice. This is our guarantee, and you will see it happen,” Rahul said.

While the Delhi Police deployment all around CP rose steadily, Kharge and Rahul said the Opposition was prevented from exercising its right to peaceful protest on Tuesday, when it tried to march from Parliament to Nirvachan Sadan, and the following day when it tried to gather at Jantar Mantar.

“All of us from the INDIA bloc are now going to Raj Ghat (Gandhi Memorial). We will stage a sit-in protest there and pray that Modi and Shah are blessed with wisdom... We want to tell the country that the BJP government is snatching away our right to vote,” Kharge said.

A truce, but no change in tack

As was the case after the alliance’s Sagar Ratna lunch, the INDIA bloc MPs boarded buses to collectively leave for Raj Ghat. What followed, however, were not the now normalised scenes of violent scuffles between Opposition MPs and the police or those of Rahul and Priyanka being forcibly evicted from a dharna and stuffed into police vans to be driven away to detention.

Instead, amid a steadily increasing crowd of political workers and common citizens alike all along the route from CP to Raj Ghat, the INDIA bloc cavalcade reached its destination without any major hurdles. At Raj Ghat too, while the police first insisted on allowing only Kharge, Rahul, Priyanka and a handful of other INDIA bloc MPs to enter the memorial, permission was eventually granted to not just the parliamentarians but also their aides and party workers to pay their homage and sit for a nearly hour-long peaceful protest.

It would, however, be too premature to conclude from Thursday’s visibly calmer protest that the Delhi Police has changed tack from its brutish crackdowns during earlier agitations. Just earlier in the day, the police had filed an FIR against the Gandhi siblings, the second in as many days. While Thursday’s FIR reportedly alleges that Rahul and Priyanka, along with other Congress leaders, had “assaulted” police personnel during Wednesday’s INDIA bloc protest, an FIR filed on Wednesday against the duo was on the charge of illegal trespass into the Akashwani Bhawan premises. Rahul has already said he considers such FIRs as “medals of honour” and is not deterred by them.

Sources in the Union Home Ministry, to which the Delhi Police reports, said there could be three possible reasons for Thursday’s protest going largely unhindered despite prohibitory orders under Section 163 BNSS being imposed for Raj Ghat and surrounding areas.

Police restraint or tactical shift?

First, the heavy police onslaught over the past two days had only ended up giving the Gandhi siblings’ and the wider Opposition’s protest “hours of free publicity”.

Second, an altercation between the police and the Gandhis at the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi, which would be inevitable if the INDIA bloc MPs were prevented from their peaceful protest, “would have been further weaponised by the Opposition to its advantage as they would invoke the irony of peaceful protests being prevented by violent force at the samadhi of the world’s most revered icon of non-violence”.

Third, unprecedented police and paramilitary deployment was already underway across Delhi in preparation for the October 10 protest that will be steered by student wings of the Left parties and the AAP as well as pressure groups like the Cockroach Janata Party and various civil society organisations.

Besides, the INDIA bloc too is expected to resume its protest on Friday. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has already discussed with INDIA bloc MPs to meet again on Friday at 3 pm at the Central Hall of the old Parliament (Samvidhaan Sadan). The meeting is expected to chart the Opposition grouping’s next course of action, which will also include a march to Rashtrapati Bhavan immediately after Friday’s meeting if the INDIA bloc doesn’t receive permission for an audience with President Droupadi Murmu by then.

Next move hinges on President

Congress MP KC Venugopal confirmed to The Federal that a “collective request from the INDIA bloc” had been made to the President’s office on October 2 seeking an appointment for any time between October 7 and October 9 to hand over a memorandum listing the coalition’s grievances against the CEC and seeking her intervention to scrap the SIR.

Also read | Congress huddle before INDIA bloc meet as EC row revives, and tests, Opposition unity

Sources in the INDIA bloc said while the Rashtrapati Bhavan had indicated the President’s willingness to meet the Opposition, it was suggested that the delegation of MPs be limited to 10 members as against the over 15 MPs for whom permission was originally sought.

“A revised list of MPs who would be part of the delegation was sent without delay after discussions within the INDIA bloc. Besides both LoPs (Kharge and Rahul), I believe names of Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Manoj Jha, Sanjay Raut and some others were given but there has been no response after that so we are still waiting for the appointment,” said a senior INDIA bloc leader.

Sources said if the appointment isn’t confirmed by the time the INDIA bloc’s Central Hall meeting concludes on Friday, the alliance leadership could begin an “immediate march from Parliament to Rashtrapati Bhavan”. Any such move is obviously going to trigger a full scale pushback from the police and paramilitary personnel.