Modi govt past its expiry date

​Kolkata: With speculations making rounds that the poll notification would be announced during the first week of March, all Opposition parties which have been trying to stitch an anti-BJP Front displayed their strength at the ‘United India Rally’ and sounded the poll bugle with the slogan ‘BJP Hatao, Desh Bachao’ since Modi government has past its expiry date.

The Opposition parties have also decided to constitute a small committee which would pick up a convenor who would lead the Front till elections and coordinate with all partners. They have also decided to hold at least two more such rallies before the elections. The next one would be at Amaravati in February followed by another in New Delhi which would be organised by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The rally has also decided to keep the issue of Prime Ministerial candidate in abeyance till the elections are over. “Our aim is to save India and save democracy,” the leaders told the media after the rally. The issue of who would be prime minister will be decided after the Lok Sabha elections, they added. Leaders of 23 parties who attended the rally spoke in one voice.

“Oust Modi, the country is awaiting a new Prime Minister. They described the rally as an ‘important attempt’ to galvanise leaders across the political spectrum to fight the ‘arrogant and divisive’ Modi government. The rally which was headed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took the fight directly to the BJP. This forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to run down the effort of Opposition leaders saying that they had ganged up against him.

Mamata said all the Opposition parties have promised to work together and announced that she would attend the rally to be organised by the TDP at Amaravati. Fond of poetry, the TMC leader coined interesting Bengali phrases "Bajar e legeche aagun jagun Bangla jagun' (Market is on fire, Bengal wake up), "Loot er takay vote lootche shob note" (votes are conducted using looted money) and "Onek hoyeche Acche din, Ebar BJP ke baad din' (Enough of 'Acche Din', get rid of BJP now). She mocked that the Bengal unit of BJP always plans meetings seeing her party, but they will "always be a zero in Bengal'.

The overall theme of the leaders who spoke was focussed on attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over its governance record. The participation of Samajwadi leader Akhilesh Yadav and BSP representative gave clear indication as to in which Front they were. Other Opposition parties who joined the meeting included Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, National Conference, Rashtriya Lok Dal and Rashtriya Janata Dal. “We have to show that coalition governments can also provide stable governments...other leaders should sit together and time is very short, just two months,” Deve Gowda said in his address.

“Senior leaders should come together and solve the problem of seat sharing,” he added. To save democracy, secular principles and institutions, we must all come together,” Kharge told the crowd and added that ‘whether or not our hearts meet, our hands must meet’. Congress stalwart Sonia Gandhi on Saturday described the Opposition rally as an "important attempt" to galvanise leaders across the political spectrum to fight the "arrogant and divisive" Modi government.

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah took a swipe at the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) calling it a 'chor machine' (stealing machine). "The EVM is a 'stealing machine' and there are many countries in the world without such machines. It is not hidden how the votes are manipulated using this. "We must appeal to the Election Commission to go back to the traditional ballot system of voting," Abdullah said.