BHOPAL: The much-awaited first public rally of the opposition INDIA bloc, slated to be held in the capital of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh in the first week of October, is cancelled, state Congress president Kamal Nath informed journalists in Bhopal on Saturday. "It is not going to happen. It has been cancelled," Nath told reporters on Saturday when asked about the rally.
A short while ago, while addressing a press conference about the party’s 15-days-long Jan Akrosh Yatras (starting on September 19), the party’s national general secretary in-charge for the poll-bound state, Randeep Singh Surjewala, had said that it was yet to be decided whether the first public rally of the INDIA bloc will be held in Bhopal or somewhere else.
“It is still being discussed between Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and leaders of other parties in the alliance,” he had said.
Earlier this week, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, which includes the Congress and more than 25 other parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, had said it would hold a rally in Bhopal.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday claimed that the opposition rally has been cancelled out of fear of the growing public ire over the alliance leaders’ anti-Sanatan Dharma remarks.
“People across the country are angry over the anti-Sanatan Dharma remarks of the alliance’s leaders. People in MP are hurt and angry over the equating of Sanatan Dharma with dengue, malaria and corona,” he said.
Earlier at the press meet, speaking on the row over remarks of the DMK leaders and the PM’s scathing attack on the opposition over it, Kamal Nath said, “India is a country of Sanatan Dharma, but has the BJP become an agency of a particular religion? By raking up this issue, the BJP wants to divert the public attention from basic and real issues, just like it did in 2019 general elections through diversionary tactics of nationalism and surgical strikes.”
Recently, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders Udhayanidhi Stalin and A Raja had claimed Sanatan Dharma had sown divisions in society and must be eradicated on the lines of diseases like dengue, malaria and coronavirus.