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New Delhi: As the marathon election approaches its end, deliberations on post-poll scenarios have begun. It is likely that opposition parties will hold a meeting on May 21, two days after polling ends, and two days before results are announced.
On Wednesday, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu met Congress president Rahul Gandhi to discuss the plan to hold the meeting. Naidu will now move to West Bengal and address two rallies over the next two days to extend support to Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.
In an interview with The Hindu, Naidu prophesied that the BJP-led NDA will not be coming to power after May 23, “There are only three possible options. One, where the Congress leads; second, where the Congress supports from outside like in the United Front government, or third, where the Congress has to join the alliance. There is no fourth option,” he said.
Narendra Modi continued his pitch for a second consecutive term. He addressed rallies in Delhi and Haryana. In Kurukshetra, the prime minister said that the BJP had ‘busted’ the Hindu terror ‘myth’, “Congress had a waged a campaign to defame India’s culture. After the Samjhauta Express blast near Panipat, Congress put innocent people behind bars for years to cover up the falsehood of Hindu terrorism. But we have busted their conspiracy. I do not let Congress and their associates do what they wish to.”
In Delhi, he attacked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) calling it ‘nakaampanthi (failures)’. “Delhi has seen ‘nakaampanthi’ model of governance. People had come to change the country, but they themselves changed. They supported ‘tukde tukde’ gang and strengthened India’s enemies,” he said.
Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern UP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra campaigned in Delhi and threw a challenge at Modi. “A Delhi girl is openly challenging you. Contest the last two phases on note bandi, GST, women’s safety and unfulfilled promises to the youth,” she said.
She was responding to Modi’s challenge earlier in the week when he had challenged the Congress to contest the last few phases of elections in Punjab and Delhi ‘in the name of Rajiv Gandhi’.
Also read: Priyanka Gandhi’s Charisma Will Not Save the Congress From a Defeat in UP
At the roadshow in Delhi, Vadra also accused Modi of blaming Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi for his failures. “Their situation is like those children who don’t do their homework and come to school. When the teacher asks them they say, what can I do, Nehru took my work and hid it. What can I do, Indira (Gandhi) made paper planes out of my homework,” she said.
The third player in the three-cornered race in Delhi, AAP, had a word of advice for Vadra. “She (Priyanka Gandhi) is wasting her time, why doesn’t she campaign in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh? She’s doing rallies in UP against the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party, she’s doing rallies in Delhi against AAP. Both brother and sister aren’t going to those places where there’s a direct fight with the BJP,” said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Amidst the politicking, Gautam Gambhir, BJP’s candidate from East Delhi, unveiled his own ‘vision document’ for his constituency. The former cricketer has outlined that he plans to convert the Ghazipur landfill into a green space, utilise the waste to generate clean energy, clean the Yamuna river and establish a campus of the Delhi University in east Delhi.
He will be contesting against AAP’s Atishi Marlena and Congress’s Arvinder Lovely. Delhi will vote on May 12.
Also read: The Delhi Voter’s Conundrum
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a plea filed by Congress member of parliament Sushmita Dev against the Election Commission’s decisions to not act on the alleged model code of conduct violations by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
The top court said that ‘rightly or wrongly’ the EC has ruled on the alleged violations and the court could not examine the merits of the decisions in the current plea. The plea was filed by Dev on the EC’s indecision on the complaints that had been made against the top BJP leaders.
The SC subsequently directed the EC to decide on all the pending complaints by May 6, which the EC complied with and ruled that both Shah and Modi had not violated the model code of conduct.
Subsequently, Dev filed an additional affidavit alleging that the EC had taken the decisions in an arbitrary and non-transparent manner. Now, the SC has said that Dev can file a fresh petition in the matter.