New Delhi, Oct. 13 -- Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi hosted INDIA bloc leaders and members of student organisations and civil society at his home for tea here on Tuesday.

Among the leaders present at Gandhi's 5, Sunehri Bagh Road residence were Tejashwi Yadav and Manoj Jha of the RJD, Mahua Maji (JMM), Harender Malik, Anand Bhadauria and Mohibullah Nadvi (SP), M A Baby (CPI-M), D Raja and P Sandosh Kumar (CPI), AISA chief Neha Bora, Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPI-ML) and Mahua Moitra (TMC).

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi, besides party leaders K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Shashi Tharoor and Pawan Khera were also present on the occasion.

Earlier, in a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said, "I have invited the leaders of the INDIA bloc, opposition MPs, student organisations and civil society comrades to my home for tea. In this people's movement to protect democracy, we are all together -- and this movement will continue relentlessly.

"After tea, we will all come together and present our case in front of the media. All protests are one," Gandhi said.

Sources said deliberations on the strategy for joint protests against "vote chori" and to press for Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar's resignation are also expected to take place during the meeting at Gandhi's residence.

This comes a day after the raging protests over the vote-theft charge reached the Supreme Court's doorstep. Opposition stalwarts, joined by activists and civil society members, undertook a "March for Democracy" on a heavily-barricaded route and filed a joint petition against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll and alleged poll irregularities in a major show of strength in the national capital. The opposition has been demanding the CEC's resignation over alleged irregularities in the SIR.

A mammoth crowd carrying flags and posters descended on central Delhi's Connaught Place, with Leaders of Opposition (LoPs) in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, Gandhi and Kharge respectively, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee, D Raja, M A Baby, Tejashwi Yadav and NCP-SCP leader Supriya Sule, among others, joining the march.

While the protesters breached a barricade on Bhagwan Dass Road, they were halted at the second barricade. Later, top leaders of the INDIA bloc went to the apex court to file a petition.

The petition has made the Election Commission of India, the CEC and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi parties to it.

The development came after the chief justice of India (CJI) declined a request for a meeting with the LoPs on the issue, saying the matter is sub-judice.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.