We should be prepared for more attacks: Mallikarjun Kharge

Mallikarjun Kharge said the sections of our society were at the receiving end of BJP’s authoritarian misrule

Mallikarjun Kharge and Uddhav Thackeray

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the success of both INDIA bloc's meetings, first in Patna and second in Bengaluru, can be measured by the fact that the Prime Minister in his subsequent speeches has not just attacked INDIA but has also compared the name of our beloved country with a terrorist organisation and a symbol of slavery.

He was speaking at the Opposition alliance's meeting on Mumbai on Friday.

"We should be prepared for more attacks in the coming months, more raids and arrests due to this government's vendetta politics. The more ground our alliance gains, the more the BJP Govt will misuse agencies against our leaders. It has done the same in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Bengal. In fact, last week, it was done in Jharkhand and in Chhattisgarh," he added.

He said the sections of our society - be it the farmers, youth, women, the marginalised, middle class, public intellectuals, NGOs and even journalists - were at the receiving end of BJP's authoritarian misrule. "140 crore Indians are looking towards us with hope to relieve them of their miseries," he added.

Kharge attributed hate crimes against train passengers and school children to "the communal poison that the BJP and RSS have spread over the last 9 years".

"It is no surprise that when people involved in gruesome rape are released and felicitated in one part of the county, it encourages horrific crimes and parading of naked women in the other. In Modi ji's India, the wife of a Kargil brave heart is also not spared," he added.

"It is the BJP Govt's apathy towards the marginalised that makes their leaders urinate on poor tribals and Dalits and the culprits are left to roam freely," he further said.

He said the federalism of the country was in danger. "The central government headed by Prime Minister Modi wants to keep states under check. States are being denied their share of the tax revenues. MGNREGA dues to Opposition ruled states are not being given. Special grants and state specific grants are not released as per recommendation of the Finance Commission."

Investment migration

According to the Congress chief, the investors were forced to move their investments and projects out of opposition ruled states to states ruled by the BJP.

"Yesterday, Rahul Gandhi held a Press Conference here and questioned PM Narendra Modi's silence on alleged Stock Manipulation by Adani Group. He demanded a JPC probe into charges of round tripping and reports of Opaque Investment from Mauritius based company. It is unexplainable why the Prime Minister is not getting the matter investigated?" he asked.

"The BJP wants complete control on agencies and institutions - it is adamant on controlling the appointment of ED Chief, the CBI Director, Election Commissioners or even judges of courts across the country," he added further.

Success of alliance

Commenting of the efforts of the Opposition, he said, "Through the course of the three meetings, INDIA alliance has successfully held the government accountable both within and outside Parliament as a united front."

"Our strength makes the government nervous and which is why it has further bulldozed important bills in parliament, suspended our MPs on flimsy grounds, filed privilege motions against us, switched off our mikes, not allowed cameras to cover our protests and blatantly censored our speeches on Sansad TV," he said.

Coordination Committee and Election Strategy Committee, INDIA

KC Venugopal, INC, Sharad Pawar, NCP

TR Baalu, DMK

Hemant Soren, JMM

Sanjay Raut, SS

Tejasvi Yadav, RJD

Abhishek Banerjee, TMC

Raghav Chaddha, AAP

Javed Ali Khan, SP

Lallan Singh, JD(U)

D Raja, CPI

Omar Abdullah, NC

Mehbooba Mufti, PDP

CPI-M to give name later

Campaign Committee, INDIA

Gurdeep Singh Sappal, INC

Sanjay Jha, JD(U)

Anil Desai, SS

Sanjay Yadav, RJD

PC Chako, NCP

Champai Soren, JMM

Kiranmoy Nanda, SP

Sanjay Singh, AAP

Arun Kumar, CPI(M)

Binoy Vishwam, CPI

Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi, NC

Shahid Siddiqui, RLD

NK Premachandran, RSP

G. Devarajan, AIFB

Ravi Rai, CPI(ML)

Thirumavalan, VCK

KM Kadar Moidin, IUML

Jose K. Mani, KC(M)

TMC (to give name later)

Working Group for Social Media

Supriya Srinate, INC

Sumit Sharma, RJD

Ashish Yadav, SP

Rajeev Nigam, SP

Raghav Chaddha, AAP

Avindani, JMM

Iltija Mehbooba, PDP

Pranjal , CPM

Dr. Bhalchandran Kango, CPI

Ifra Ja, NC

V Arun Kumar, CPI(ML)

TMC (to give name later)

Working Group for Media

Jairam Ramesh, INC

Manoj Jha, RJD

Arvind Sawant, SS

Jitendra Ahwad, NCP

Raghav Chaddha, AAP

Rajiv Ranjan, JD(U)

Pranjal , CPM

Ashish Yadav, SP

Supriyo Bhattacharya, JMM

Alok Kumar, JMM

Manish Kumar, JD(U)

Rajeev Nigam, SP

Dr. Bhalchandran Kango, CPI

Tanvir Sadiq, NC

Prashant Kannojia

Naren Chatterjee, AIFB

Sucheta De, CPI(ML)

Mohit Bhan, PDP

TMC (to give name later)

Working Group for Research

Amitabh Dubey, INC

Prof. Subodh Mehta, RJD

Priyanka Chaturvedi, SS

Vandana Chavan, NCP

KC Tyagi, JD(U)

Sudivya Kumar Sonu, JMM

Jasmine Shah, AAP

Alok Ranjan, SP

Imran Nabi Dar, NC

Ad. Aditya, PDP

TMC (to give name later)