INDIA bloc's 'public impeachment' of CEC postponed to Oct 31 due to rain: Rahul

INDIA bloc has decided to postpone the "public impeachment" of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar to Saturday (October 31) due to rain, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday.

The event, a symbolic protest over the "vote chori" issue, was scheduled to be held on Friday from 3:30 PM onwards at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence in Delhi.

What Rahul said

“By consensus, we have decided to postpone today’s programme (public impeachment programme against CEC) to tomorrow at the same time because of rain. We felt that it would be uncomfortable for seniors to sit in the rain, and we will hold the exact same programme tomorrow,” Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul said at a press conference in Delhi.

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On Thursday, INDIA bloc leaders had met to give the final shape to the "public impeachment" proceedings, which will be held from 3:30 PM onwards at Kharge's residence as a symbolic protest over the "vote chori" issue.

Congress general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Jairam Ramesh and K C Venugopal, senior Congress leader Meira Kumar, TMC's Derek O'Brien, Samajwadi Party's Harendra Malik, JMM's Mahua Maji and CPI(M)'s John Brittas, among others, participated in the preparatory meeting on Thursday.

Rahul said that INDIA bloc would march to Ramlila Maidan on Sunday (November 1) and he invited everybody to join them.

“The day after, we have a march to Ramlila Maidan. All the Opposition, everybody who wants to come: political, non-political, social, service people, civil society people, journalists. Both the programmes are about the demolition of Indian democracy by Narendra Modi, by Amit Shah, by Gyanesh Kumar and his crew in the Election Commission. The Home Minister is trying his best to stop people from coming into Delhi, trying to ensure that our party members, common people who want to come from UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, are being stopped. And they're trying their best," Rahul said.

'This is one protest'

“Now you watch what happens at Ramlila Ground. You watch how many people come, and you watch how many people they manage to stop, and you will understand what is going on in this country. Huge anger, huge emotional pain, because millions of people are being disenfranchised.

“Their vote is being stolen from them to help Mr Adani, Mr Ambani, Mr Modi, Mr Shah, and Mr Mohan Bhagwat. As we said before, this is not multiple protests. This is one protest. The entire Opposition is standing here. Anybody who wants to protest, any person, is welcome to come here. We are all standing together because we are defending the Constitution. We are defending the idea of India. We are defending the vote, which is the expression of all Indians,” he added.

TMC MP Derek O’Brien, who was also present with Rahul and other INDIA bloc leaders, said, “We are all in this together and we will win this together.”