INDIA bloc's daily Delhi marches against SIR and CEC hit festive season pause button

New Delhi: A day after INDIA bloc leaders staged a united march, their fifth since last week, and filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the chief election commissioner and SIR, their street protest was paused in Delhi on Tuesday, even as a meeting of bloc leaders convened by Rahul Gandhi felt that in view of the ongoing festival season and the related sustainability issues, they will have to scale down their daily protests and marches in the national capital to occasional outings.

Yet, the Cockroach Janta Party's agitation against the denotification of Jantar Mantar as a protest site has also put pressure on the bloc, especially Congress, to do something similar, if not unitedly, at least through the respective parties and their student and youth wings and through civil society.

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While INDIA bloc leaders made no official statement about the next protest schedule post-meeting, sources said there won't be regular united Delhi street marches till at least the third week of October due to Navratri-Durga puja festivities and later during Diwali-Dusshera-Chhat season in November. Congress will hold its scheduled Delhi rally on November 1. Leaders/MPs of parties facing state elections will also have to work on their home turf rather than staying put in Delhi. This, even as the Opposition lawyers are trying to get an emergency hearing of their petition in the Supreme Court with the Opposition hoping for at least an interim stay on SIR.

"In view of the current festival season, starting with Navratra and Durga puja and lasting till mid-November with Diwali and Chhat, many of our colleagues suggested at the meeting that it would be difficult to carry on during this period with the same kind of united daily protest in Delhi. However, we stand together...," a leader who participated in the bloc meeting told ET.

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Sources said the meeting also witnessed some participants suggesting shifting the bloc's protest later to states, and places like Varanasi, the PM's LS constituency. However, most felt that to get maximum optics and impact, Delhi was the place for protests.

At a post-meeting presser, all leaders vowed to fight unitedly, with Gandhi saying that there were plans for a 'surprise' effect. "I used the word perseverance yesterday. Our team will not stop. If not today, tomorrow or the day after or after three months... We will go till the end of the fight. We can't give the details," he said, adding that the Opposition will also 'challenge' the bar on Jantar Mantar. Leaders, including Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Sanjay Raut (SS-UBT), HS Malik (SP), MA Baby, D Raja and Neha Bora (Left) and Sagarika Ghosh (AITC-Mamata) vowed to keep up their unity and fight against CEC, SIR and the Modi government.