New Delhi, Oct. 10 -- AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said the INDIA bloc would stage a major protest in Delhi on Monday as part of its continuing fight to protect people's voting rights. Talking to reporters here on Saturday, he said the bloc recently met the President to convey its concerns on the matter and would also meet the Chief Justice of India on Monday. Venugopal alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah's attempts to protect Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar would lead to their downfall. The Congress and the INDIA bloc would continue their struggle until the electoral process and system became free and fair, he said. He said the Congress had intervened cautiously against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Keralam, and referred to the controversy over the BJP's election symbol, the lotus, appearing on the Election Commission's letterhead

Meanwhile, former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee decided to join the Monday protest march to the Supreme Court as part of the INDIA alliance. The national general secretary of TMC, Abhishek Banerjee, who had left for Kolkata, would also return to Delhi to join the rally, as per reports. The planned rally is seen as another step in the Opposition's protest action over the current controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls.

Addressing the media in the national capital, Mamata Banerjee said she would carry on with her agitation for the benefit of the country's citizens. The former chief minister of West Bengal also held a dharna outside the gate of Dwarka North police station following her detention and five other TMC leaders by the Delhi Police. Reacting strongly to the move of the police, Banerjee raised questions about why they put elected people into a police vehicle and made them sit there for such a long time. "We are not criminals who will be taken into a prison van and made to go for two hours. We are political people," she said, alleging that the government was scared of their protest. Those accompanying Banerjee include TMC Rajya Sabha MPs Derek O'Brien and Dola Sen, along with Lok Sabha MP Pratima Mandal and Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam.

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