india

Updated: Feb 03, 2019 12:29 IST

About two dozen Opposition parties will hold joint symposiums on key issues, such as jobs and farmers’ plight, across the country in their latest campaign against the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ahead of the summer Lok Sabha elections.

The parties are also exploring the possibility of going to the Supreme Court to seek voter verifiable paper audit trails (VVPAT) for at least 50% electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the elections, likely in April-May.

Experts and activists will be invited to these meetings for a wider opinion on issues that are also likely poll planks for the Opposition parties. Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu proposed at the Opposition parties’ meeting on Friday that the first symposium could be held at the country’s newest state capital, Amravati, after the budget session ends on February 13.

The anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) group has picked three issues — agrarian crisis, unemployment and attacks on democratic institutions — for discussion at the symposiums.

The campaign on specific issues, according to insiders, is a “good way” to keep differences between individual parties at bay and project a united face in the run-up to the general election.

In the last meeting too, fissures were visible as the parties debated the EVM issue. Some parties, including the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), wanted no EVMs but ballot papers while the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was against withdrawal of EVMs. “Finally, we reached a common ground. We decided to demand at least 50% paper trail in the polls, and if the victory margin is less than 5% in any constituency, then its votes should be recounted using VVPAT,” said a senior leader.

The parties will submit a memorandum to the Election Commission (EC) on Monday.

“But if the EC doesn’t accept our proposals, we may even go to the apex court,” said Derek O’Brien, Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha floor leader.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, BSP’s Satish Mishra, SP’s Ramgopal Yadav, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, O’Brien, CPIM leader Md Salim and others have signed the petition.

In the meeting, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership suggested that communalism should be added to the three other key issues, but the proposal was rejected by most leaders. “Many feared that talking aggressively about communalism may not be as productive as campaigning about jobs and farm crisis,” a leader said, not wishing to be named. “Let us not dwell on our differences,” a senior Opposition leader said amid diverging opinions on how to form their strategy.

Other leaders said it was Gandhi who suggested that the Opposition’s joint campaign should stick to only three raging issues, at least for the time being.