New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who are touring the poll-bound state of Bihar as part of the Mahagathbandhan’s ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ reached the Khanquah Rahmani, a noted minority institution in Munger on Friday.
The duo, having pledged to unseat the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar government, met Muslim scholars at the Khanquah Rahmani centre and discussed issues and challenges before the community.
Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said that senior Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s call for cancelling the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in Bihar is receiving immense support on the ground as people have hit the streets and rallying support behind the move, being seen as ‘discriminatory and biased’.
KC Venugopal said that SIR has stirred the electorate in Bihar as many claim that their names have been struck off the voters list.
The ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’, being steered by LoP Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav, reached Munger on Friday with leaders of other Opposition parties including Mukesh Sahani, Pappu Yadav and Deepankar Bhattacharya accompanying them.
Their visit to Khanquah Rahmani, a noted Muslim institution set up in 1901 by eminent scholar Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Ali Mungeri assumes significance, as it is seen as the grand alliance’s outreach to the Muslim scholars and in turn wooing the community at large.
The Muslim institute has been visited by many famous personalities in the past, including former Presidents late Rajendra Prasad and Abdul Kalam Azad and late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi.
Khanquah Rahmani is known for its contribution to India’s freedom movement and after Independence, it also has served as a platform for protecting various rights and liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution, besides being the voice for social justice, education and public health.
Here, the students are not only imparted religious education but are also taught and trained in subjects like Science, English and Mathematics. It prepares students from the community for competitive engineering and medical examinations including JEE and NEET.
Earlier, Tejashwi Yadav addressed a large public gathering in Munger and dared the poll panel to disenfranchise any voter of Bihar. He accused the ECI of colluding with the BJP and said that the people will expose this ‘secret dealing’ soon.
LoP Gandhi reiterated his ‘vote chori’ and ‘vote fraud’ charge, alleging that the ECI rigged more than 1 lakh votes in Karnataka elections and its ploy to ‘steal’ the elections has been unearthed.
–IANS
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