New Delhi, Sept. 30 -- The BJP said the outcomes of the INDIA Bloc meeting on Wednesday were "zero vision, 100 per cent frustration, and an advance excuse for poll defeats", with the leaders of the Opposition grouping rejecting Rahul Gandhi's leadership.

"The INDI Alliance fell apart even before the meeting took place. The DMK did not attend the meeting. Akhilesh was busy elsewhere. The AAP had already declined," Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said at a press conference at the BJP headquarters.

The senior BJP leader further pointed out that Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray said he will join the meeting virtually.

"Why is this happening? It is because the INDI Alliance is simply not willing to accept Rahul Gandhi as its leader. His leadership is not being accepted; that is why they are not even showing up," Chouhan said, contending that Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav would have come to attend the meeting if it was "really so important."

Chouhan claimed that the Opposition INDIA Bloc is crumbling.

"No matter how many times they (Congress) try to re-launch Rahul Gandhi, the INDIA Bloc does not consider him their leader," he said.

"Leave the INDIA Bloc aside; even Congress leaders and members of the party are not willing to accept Rahul Gandhi as their leader. Rahul himself, during Congress Working Committee meetings, keeps pleading: 'Accept me as your leader, trust me'," the BJP leader said, and wondered how the country could accept someone as a leader whom his own party does not.

The BJP's remarks came after the INDIA Bloc leaders met here to finalise an action plan for a joint agitation over alleged irregularities in the SIR.

The Congress asserted that the Opposition stands united to protect the Constitution from "repeated assaults" of the Modi government, including its "vote chori gameplan" to remain in power.

While the DMK and the AAP skipped the meeting, Akhilesh Yadav did not attend it on account of nominations for Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretaries Jairam Ramesh and K C Venugopal, the TMC's Mamata Banerjee, and leaders from the SP, CPI, CPI(M), NCP(SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT), among others, attended the meeting.

Chouhan alleged that the INDIA Bloc's proposed marches from October 2 to October 8 at various locations in the country are not meant to save democracy, but to save the "dynasty" of the Congress and its constituents.

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