Coinciding with the conclusion of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections today, senior leaders of the INDIA alliance met at the residence of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in the national capital to make an assessment of how the opposition parties have fared in the polls and discuss preparations for counting day.
Emerging from the meeting, which lasted around two-and-a-half hours, Kharge, in the presence of the INDIA bloc leaders, told the media that the alliance was poised to get more than 295 seats.
“INDIA will get 295-plus seats, not less than that. This is our assessment. All the leaders today discussed this before we arrived at this figure. This is people's survey. This is not a 'sarkari' survey where figures are manipulated and their friends in the media hype things up,” he said.
An important item on the agenda of the meeting was to prepare for the counting of votes and ensure that the party leaders and the workers who will be present in the counting centres are well aware of the modalities and will be armed with Form 17C with which to cross check the figures.
“All the parties will instruct their cadre to have Form 17C. They have to sit in the counting centre till the end and not leave the counting hall till the certificate is provided,” Kharge said.
The opposition parties have been vocal about their concerns with regard to voter turnout figures as published by the Election Commission. They have questioned the perceived delay in making the figures public, asked why the Commission did not provide the absolute number of voters but only the polling percentage and have also demanded during the elections that Form 17C, which has voter data per polling booth, must be made public by the EC. The Commission eventually made public constituency wise absolute figures of number of voters registered and the number of voters who cast their votes after the completion of six phases of polling.
The INDIA parties have sought time from the Commission tomorrow to apprise it about their concerns with regard to counting of votes.
It was also decided in the meeting that INDIA alliance parties will take part in TV debates on exit poll. Yesterday, the Congress had announced it would not take part in exit poll debates. However, the issue was discussed in today's meeting, and it was felt that the parties should in fact participate in the TV discussions to “expose the BJP”.
“After considering factors for and against participating in the exit polls, it has been decided by consensus that all the INDIA parties will participate in the exit poll debates on television this evening,” Congress' media department chairman Pawan Khera posted on X.
The leaders who attended the meeting included former Congress presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, AICC General Secretary Organisation K C Venugopal, AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, NCP (Sharad Pawar) supremo Sharad Pawar, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren, JMM leader Kalpana Soren, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, DMK leader T.R. Baalu, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, CPI's D. Raja, Anil Desai of Shiv Sena (UBT), CPI(ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya and Mukesh Sahani of VIP party.