NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday clarfied his decision to skip Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s lunch meeting for INDIA bloc MPs, saying opposition leaders could meet over tea or even sit down for samosas in the future.Asked about his absence from the lunch, Yadav said, “It won’t just be about a single lunch. In the future, you might hear about a meeting over tea. We could all sit down and eat samosas too—if a ‘samosa’ slogan were to be raised, there’s nothing wrong with that. Diplomacy will continue”The SP chief had participated in the INDIA bloc’s protest on the first day on Tuesday, when opposition MPs marched towards the Election Commission demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation. Yadav was among the leaders detained by Delhi Police during the protest.However, he did not join Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders in their subsequent sit-in at Akashvani Bhavan, where they remained for hours before being detained. Yadav later returned to Lucknow.On Wednesday, Yadav and other SP MPs also stayed away from Kharge’s lunch at Sagar Ratna on Janpath and the protest at Jantar Mantar that followed. The absence came amid questions over coordination between the SP and Congress, the two major constituents of the INDIA bloc, ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.The lunch was organised as opposition MPs sought to chalk out their next steps in the campaign against the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and their allegations of “vote chori”. The MPs later boarded buses for Jantar Mantar, where they staged another protest demanding Kumar’s resignation.
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Rahul Gandhi, who was detained by police while heading towards Jantar Mantar, reiterated that the opposition would continue its protest until Kumar resigns. “We are not going to stop protesting till Gyanesh Kumar resigns. This is a fight to protect the most sacred thing in this country. There is nothing that Narendra Modi and Amit Shah can do that will stop us,” Gandhi said in a post on X.The developments followed Tuesday’s dramatic protest, when opposition MPs were stopped near central Delhi while attempting to march to the Election Commission. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra later reached Akashvani Bhavan and staged an extended sit-in, while several other leaders, including Yadav, were detained during the day’s demonstrations.
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