Taking a sharp dig at the Opposition INDIA bloc, the BJP on Monday said the INDI alliance has no real presence on the ground and thus loses an election every three months.
The saffron party’s comment came at a time when the Opposition INDIA bloc leaders gathered in New Delhi to discuss political strategy and coordination among opposition parties. During the meeting, leaders from 23 Opposition parties resolved a five-point strategy to challenge the government on issues that include electoral integrity and economic concerns.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, BJP MP Sambit Patra said, “Today, the INDI alliance held a meeting at the Constitution Club. Addressing the media afterward, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said that rigging had occurred and votes had been stolen. But it is hard to understand how long they have been using the same tape recorder.”
He stated that the EVM tampering happened in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, yet the Opposition formed the government there. “But when they lost in Bengal, they cursed SIR and cried foul,” Dr. Patra said.
Hitting out the Opposition INDIA bloc, the BJP MP said, “All of us and the people of India are witnessing this height of hypocrisy. If anything has truly been stolen, it is the existence of the INDI Alliance. Today, none of these political parties has any real presence on the ground. Their integrity has been lost, and because of that loss of integrity, the public did not vote for them.”
Taking a potshot at today’s INDIA bloc meeting, Dr. Patra said, “This is not their meeting, but rather a drama being orchestrated by the INDI Alliance. They lose an election every three months, and they hold a meeting every other month.”
“Rahul Gandhi (Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha) has scored a century of electoral defeats. Yet today he was smiling as if he had conquered a huge fortress,” the BJP MP said.
He stated that the INDI alliance has now called for an all-party meeting. “However, at the previous all-party meeting on the Nari Vandan Adhiniyam, none of their (Opposition INDIA bloc) members was present. In fact, whenever meetings are held in Parliament during the session, none of the INDI alliance partners attends, often offering weak excuses for their absence,” the BJP MP said.
“Despite this, they (the Opposition INDIA bloc) are now demanding an all-party meeting through a press conference,” he said.
The public has rendered them (Opposition INDIA bloc) completely inactive, Dr. Patra further stated.
“We saw how Arvind Kejriwal ji, Mamata Banerjee ji, and Kharge ji were all meeting with bouquets of flowers as if a very big strategy meeting was about to take place. Earlier, all these meetings used to happen in stadiums; you all must have seen how everyone stood holding each other’s hands in the Bengaluru stadium. Gradually, it now happens in a single room at the Constitution Club. Now stadiums don’t get filled; this meeting happens only in one room of the Constitution Club,” he said.