In a season of pre-poll agitations, civil society organisations representing a diverse range of constituencies — farmers, veterans and war widows, students and unemployed youth, Dalits and adivasis, women, hate crime victims, chit fund scam victims — have united to launch an umbrella movement against the Modi government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Beginning on January 30, on the eve of the upcoming Budget session of Parliament, protesters under the banner of India Unites plan to sit on a nine-day dharna at the Jantar Mantar on the Parliament Street.
“We invite political parties to come and listen to the people’s real issues, and campaign on the basis of these issues, not on masjid-mandir politics,” said Hannan Mollah, general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS).
Opposition politicians, including Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) head and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and representatives from the Trinamool Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Left parties, are expected to participate on at least one day of the dharna, according to India Unites coordinator Major Priyadarshi Chowdhury (Retd.).
“We have been building this coalition from late 2015-onwards. This has been organised as a political pressure group which is not into electoral politics. We want the focus to remain on issues, not individuals,” Major Chowdhury said on the sidelines of a press conference on Thursday. Each day of the dharna will focus on a different issue.