Mumbai, Nov 3 (IANS) In a critique of the ruling establishment, the Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray on Tuesday declared that a major political revolution is underway following the opposition-led ‘Chalo Delhi’ rally at Delhi’s historic Ramlila Maidan.
The Thackeray camp, in an editorial in the party’s mouthpiece, ‘Saamana’, asserted that the “roaring turnout has shaken the foundational walls of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah’s administration”. The rally, organised to protest alleged large-scale electoral malpractices, voter list manipulations, and what the opposition terms a systematic “vote-theft project”, brought together leaders from across the INDIA bloc.
The Thackeray camp led a fierce assault on Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, arguing that allegations surrounding voter list discrepancies are no longer merely opposition rhetoric, but stem directly from public disclosures made by sitting election commissioners.
“Vote-theft has now become a national slogan; it is the declaration of the people. Scams in the voter lists, the deletion of crores of voters’ names, and working to assist Modi and Shah under the guise of SIR do not constitute anarchy. On the contrary, this is a people’s rebellion against the terrible situation created by Modi, Shah, and Gyanesh Kumar,” said the editorial.
Accusing CEC Gyanesh Kumar of acting as a “protective shield” for the Central government, the editorial claimed that institutional bias is being used to shield the top leadership from accountability. Despite heavy police deployment, multi-layered barricading, and government attempts to stall incoming demonstrators, Delhi’s arterial roads witnessed massive vehicular and pedestrian congestion. While Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders attempted to downplay the turnout as a minor gathering of a few thousand, observers noted that hundreds of thousands assembled at Ramlila Maidan.
The editorial highlighted that the fervour and public outrage witnessed over the weekend rivalled Jayaprakash Narayan’s historic pro-democracy and anti-corruption crusade launched from the same ground on June 25, 1975.
“Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi stated that the Modi-Shah leadership lost its moral mandate in the 2024 general elections and was only sustained in office through administrative and institutional assistance. Vowing legal recourse, Gandhi declared that institutional figures complicit in electoral malpractices would eventually face strict judicial accountability,” the editorial said.
“The central leadership strongly repudiated the mobilisation. Home Minister Amit Shah characterised the ‘Chalo Delhi’ call as an invitation to political anarchy and defended the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, arguing that the opposition was attempting to shield illegal foreign infiltrators,” noted the editorial. It further added that Prime Minister Modi accused opposition leaders of attempting to divide the nation for short-term political gains.
The Thackeray faction countered the Home Minister’s defence, pointing out the absurdity of labelling millions of deleted Indian voters across multiple states as foreign national infiltrators.
In conclusion, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena asserted that the “roar for regime change” that echoed from Ramlila Maidan in 1975 has now been surpassed by an even louder demand for democratic restoration. Framing the rally as a decisive turning point, the party maintained that the momentum generated in the national capital marks the beginning of an unyielding national movement to restore constitutional integrity and hold the current establishment accountable.
–IANS
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