Rahul Gandhi to address mega rally in Bhubaneswar
This will be Gandhi's first visit to the state as Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Gandhi will be accompanied by AICC General Secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal.
After the rally, Rahul Gandhi, Kharge, and Venugopal are also likely to hold discussions with the Congress Legislature Party, PCC President, and MLAs at Congress Bhavan on organisational matters.
The rally in Odisha comes after the INDIA bloc held a massive "Bihar Bandh" rally in Patna on July 9 against electoral roll revision in the poll-bound state, where Rahul Gandhi launched a sharp attack on the Centre and the Election Commission of India, alleging that the Maharashtra model of "stealing elections" is being implemented in Bihar.
"We have come to Bihar, where people have sacrificed their lives for the Constitution. It is written in our Constitution that every citizen has the right to vote. I want to tell the people of India and Bihar that just like the Maharashtra elections were stolen, similarly, an attempt is being made to steal the Bihar elections," LoP Gandhi said while addressing a large gathering during the 'Chakka Jam' protest in Patna against the voter list revision.
Alleging that the "pattern of electoral manipulation" seen in Maharashtra could be repeated in Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav called the ECI a "Godi Aayog" while accusing the NDA alliance of using the constitutional body to remove the names of "Bihar's poor people" from the voter list.
Several senior leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc, including CPI General Secretary D Raja, CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation leader Dipankar Bhattacharya, Bihar Congress President Rajesh Ram, Kanhaiya Kumar, and Sanjay Yadav, also participated in the protest in Bihar.
The Congress leader said, "The constituencies where voters were added, BJP won."
However, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has reported significant progress in Bihar's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, with over 57 per cent of enumeration forms collected in the first half of the designated period, reinforcing the commission's commitment to maintaining pure electoral rolls across the country.
The Bihar Assembly elections are to be held later this year and the state will witness a multi-cornered contest with the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) and the BJP, facing off against the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the INC, and other parties.
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