{"id":77763,"date":"2024-04-01T04:01:05","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T04:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/big-opposition-rally-warns-modi-against-match-fixing\/"},"modified":"2024-04-01T04:01:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T04:01:05","slug":"big-opposition-rally-warns-modi-against-match-fixing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/big-opposition-rally-warns-modi-against-match-fixing\/","title":{"rendered":"Big opposition rally warns Modi against \u2018match-fixing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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NEW DELHI: A major opposition rally in the Indian capital on Sunday warned the Modi government against misusing government agencies to alter the election<\/a> results with a change to the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Narendra Mo\u00addi says he would have 400 plus seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha in the elections the nu\u00adm\u00adbers needed to change the secular and egalitarian Constitution.<\/p>\n

Under the banner of \u201cLokta\u00adntra Bachao\u201d or \u201cSave Demo\u00adcracy\u201d, leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclu\u00adsive Alliance (INDIA) stood united at the historic Ramlila Maidan in solidarity with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal<\/a> and former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who were arrested in separate cases by the Enforcement Directorate. The bloc also laid down their 2024 general election pitch calling it a \u201cfight to save the Constitution\u201d.<\/p>\n

In their speeches, opposition leaders lamented the lack of level playing field for them in the election, citing \u201ccoercive action\u201d by central agencies against them and income tax notices financially crippling the parties.<\/p>\n

This was in effect the first public meeting of the 10-month-old INDIA bloc, which has been marked by desertions and conflicts over seat-sharing arrangements. With the presence of leaders of different persuasions united under the anti-BJP umbrella, the meeting could mark a turning point for the factitious opposition. The irony that the venue in 2011 hosted the Anna Hazare movement \u2014 that led to the rise of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and fall of the Congress governments in the Centre and Delhi \u2014 was also not lost on the assembled crowd.<\/p>\n

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi asserted that without EVM manipulation and other intimidating tactics, the BJP and its allies can\u2019t cross 180 seats in the upcoming general election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen pressure is put on umpires and captains, players are bought off and the match is won in cricket, it is called match-fixing. We have Lok Sabha election before us. Who selected the umpires? Before the match started, two players were arrested\u2026 Narendra Modi is trying to do match-fixing in the election,\u201d Mr Gandhi said.<\/p>\n

The BJP is raising the slogan of getting 400 seats but without EVMs, \u201cmatch-fixing\u201d, pressuring media and buying them, it will not be able to reach even 180 seats, he claimed.<\/p>\n

Mr Gandhi sought to remind the crowd of remarks from a BJP MP, who he did not name, that the BJP will change the Constitution when it gets over 400 seats. \u201cIf the Constitution is finished, this country will be finished,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThe country will be torn apart into different states.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wives of both incarcerated leaders \u2014 Mr Kejriwal and Mr Soren \u2014 spoke at the event.<\/p>\n

Sunita Kejriwal read out a message from the jailed<\/a> chief minister, in which he promised five guarantees \u2014 uninterrupt\u00aded power supply, free electricity for poor, government schools and mohalla clinics in every village, a multi-specialty government hospital in every district and minimum support price (MSP) for crops.<\/p>\n

But before reading out his message, Ms Kejriwal said, \u201cOur Prime Minister Narendra Modi put my husband in custody. Do you all believe that he did the right thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress president Malli\u00adkarjun Kharge likened the BJP and RSS to \u201cpoison\u201d. \u201cYou have to decide if you want democracy or dictatorship\u2026 Those who support dictatorship need to be kicked out of the country. The BJP and RSS are like poison. You will die even if you taste poison,\u201d Mr Kharge said.<\/p>\n

The Congress president also spoke to his allies, asking them to overcome their differences. He spoke about the left and Congress\u2019 electoral contest in Kerala but their unity at national level.<\/p>\n

Addressing Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann dire\u00adctly, he said, \u201cWe need to unite and only then will we be able to fight the BJP. We won\u2019t succeed if we keep attacking and fighting each other,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The rally also served as an opportunity for many INDIA bloc participants to recommit to the anti-BJP alliance.<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of the rally, on behalf of the INDIA bloc, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra read out a five-part demands. The parties demanded that the Election Commission ensure a level playing field for them and stop \u201ccoercive action\u201d against them by Central agencies like I-T, ED, and CBI. They dema\u00adnded immediate release of Mr Soren and Mr Kejriwal. The parties also asked the government to stop financially strangulating them and urged the Supreme Court to set up a Special Inves\u00adtigation Team to probe the allegations of quid pro quo, extortion and money laundering by BJP using the electoral bonds.<\/p>\n

Congress president Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, NCP (Sharad\u00adchandra Pawar) leader Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, Sam\u00adaj\u00adwadi Party president Yadav, CPI(M) general secretary Yec\u00adhury, CPI general secretary D. Raja, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, National Conference\u2019s Farooq Abdullah, and Jha\u00adr\u00adkh\u00adand CM Champai Soren, amo\u00adng others, attended the rally.<\/p>\n

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI: A major opposition rally in the Indian capital on Sunday warned the Modi government against misusing government agencies to alter the election results with a change to the Constitution. Prime Minister Narendra Mo\u00addi says he would have 400 plus seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha in the elections the nu\u00adm\u00adbers needed to change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/04\/660a1108754d2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}