A meeting of some selected intellectuals was held in Anuvrat Bhawan at 3 PM on dated 2nd May, 2023. The meeting was called collectively by Sh. Sandeep Pandey, the General Secretary of Socialist party (India) and Sh. Vishwatma, the Founder and Policy Director of Voters Party International, VPI. The subject of the meeting was to discuss the strategy of removing BJP from power in upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2024.

The name of the 39 participants who participated the meeting was as under:

1. Shri Shyam Gambhir Socialist Party (India) Delhi

2.  Shri Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay Prize winner and Secretary General Socialist Party (India)

3.  Shri Kumar Prashant, Gandhi Peace Foundation, Delhi

4. Shri Vishwatma, The Founder and Policy Director-Voters Party international, New Delhi

5. Shri Comrade Prabhat Roy, IFS, and columnist

6. Shri Shivakant Gorakhpuri Secretary General Voters Party International

7. Shri Manoj Kumar, Gurgaon

8. Shri Satya Prakash Bharat, social activist Delhi

9. Shri Gagan Gupta, designing consultant Gurgaon. Secretary Global Affairs Committee, Voters Party international

10. Smt. Manjoo Surendra Mohan General Secretary Socialist Party (India)

11. Shri Syed Tahseen Ahmad, State president Delhi, Socialist Party (India) Delhi

12. Sh. Vinod Kumar yadav, Social Activist Bagpah

13. Advocate Ram Niwas Yadav, Etah

14. Shri Sadesh Ali Masih, State president Uttar Pradesh Voters Party international

15. Shri Om Prakash Dwivedi Social Activist Kanpur

16. Shri Dinesh Abrol, Delhi Science Forum

17. Shri Ram Avatar Bansal, member Central executive committee Voters Party International

18. Shri Mustakeem, Firozabad, U.P.

19. Advocate Y K Sikri, Delhi

20. Shri Vijay Pal Singh Advocate High court Delhi,

21. Ms. Dimple Oberai, Simla, H.P.

22. Shri Monika Yadav, JNU, Delhi

23. Shri Avdhesh Singh , Pracharak- Voters Party International

24. Shri Mumtaz Alam, IMS

25. Shri Mahesh Manav Delhi

26. Shri Comrade Yashwant Prakash, Jaipur

27. Shri Kalyan Jain, Ex Member of Parliament, Indore,

28. Shri John Dayal, Kerala/Delhi

29. Shri Girdhari Lal Girdhar, Vikas Foundation

30. Shri Harendra Suryavanshi, Member Central executive committee Voters Party International

31. Shri Nandram Bagdi, Well Known Dalit Leader of Delhi

The meeting started at about 3.20 due to the meeting of Sh. Sandeep Pandey and Sh. Vishwatma and others with former Governor Sh. Satmpal Malik. Starting the meeting, Sh. Sandeep Pandey informed the participants that Sh. Satpal Malik has assured to work with the process which we are going to start from today. The introduction session of the participants was held first. Shri Sandeep Pandey proposed the name of Sh. Shyam Gambheer of Socialist Party (India) to preside over the meeting. Sh. Vishwatma seconded his proposal. Hence the meeting started. Initiating the meeting Sh. Sandeep Pandey introduced the purpose of the meeting and requested the Founder of Voters Party International, VPI Sh. Vishwatma ji to present the resolutions to be discussed in the meeting in order to for an alliance of social and political organizations/parties.

Sh. Vishwatma read out the 3 pages 16 point resolution on strategy to form an alliance. He also showed the resolution text on the screen through a projector and requested the participants to discuss the matter and express their opinion thereon. Through the link given below the resolution may be seen in Hindi and English.

हिंदी में पढ़ें :

https://www.votersparty.in/the-delhi-declaration-of-2nd-may-2023-on-opposition-constitution-assembly/

Read in English :

https://votersparty.in/en/the-delhi-declaration-of-2nd-may-2023-on-opposition-constitution-assembly/

Prof Jitender Sharma came from Nangal Kalan, Sonipat, Haryana read out his note prepared for the meeting. He spoke on Point 4, 6, 16 of the resolution presented by Sh. Vishwatama. He said, Vertical integration is not enough, horizontal integration is must in alliance. So ground level workers should get synergized. He added that the booth management level coordination is a must. Recalling his experience of drafting the manifesto of Janta Pary in 1977 he said that cadre training of workers of all member organizations of the alliance is very important. So political training is critical. He suggested that Sindhu border should be the place of this training. He stressed on publicity through leaflets for political messaging.

Ms. Dimple Oberoi wanted the Environment, Patriarchy and Kashmir issue to be included as part of resolution. She also requested to keep all the documents in English or at least simple Hindi mixed with Urdu words to communicate in a better manner.

Shri Girdhari lal Girdhar came from Canada stressed not to invite the chief minister or ex chief ministers to join the alliance as they may sabotage the alliance. He said that the BJP will put vote breakers and defeat the opposition. He wanted to Fight on the economic agenda, especially include MSP for farmers as an election issue and also crop insurance. He wanted the alliance to present an alternative economic agenda like the Janata Budget and talk about sending a hefty amount per month directly into the bank accounts of the people. He suggested that the main slogan in 2024 should be “Abkee Baar Kisan Sarkar”.

Mr John Dayal, the Journalist from South India/Keral said that it's not necessary to go one to one on each seat against the BJP as it may prove counterproductive in many seats, especially in places like Kerala. He said that the ground realities must be kept in mind. He suggested that going for a post election alliance may be more beneficial as UPA 1 & 2 worked successfully like this. He stressed on the need to discuss how to reach opposition unity at each seat level only and not overall.

Shri Yashwant Prakash, came from Jaipur stressed on providing a positive colour to the campaign. He said we should stress that we are working to protect the Indian constitution. We are opposing the BJP for the sake of saving the constitution and not just opposing the BJP. So we should not bring BJP in the target of our planning. He said that we should stress on 4 important points. The first is to maintain the independence of democratic Institutions. Second is to keep religion out of politics. Third is to handle the corruption and crony capitalism and the fourth is to tackle crime, especially vigilante political agenda and coercion like Gau Rakshak and Beef eating. He said that it's difficult to spot which organisation is for or against the BJP. So we have to form alliances very carefully. He opined that in our agenda there is nothing new. Everyone says this. He added that If people are not following the Indian constitution, who will follow ours? He said that the moral force is more useful than the constitution of the alliance. So we have to show a new positive direction. 

Mr Om Prakash Divedi came from Kanpur Dehat stressed that there should be some Qualification standards set for selecting alliance partners like: Alliance partners should not endorse capitalism, Fundamentalism, Family politics should not be there. Also, just Any person should not be allowed in, there should be standards and qualifications. There were some other speakers who spoke briefly, but these were the main points.

Shri Tahseem Ahmad, the president of Delhi state of Socialist Party (India) said that we need a moral force to unite the opposition against BJP. He said that moral force will definitely be a non-political person.

Shri Dinesh Abroal Delhi Science Forum said that Let us concentrate on the challenges of mobilization of people at the grassroots level. We are left with less than one year. We should focus on 250 constituencies in which the opposition had lost to BJP by smaller margins. Further he said that our role should be to build an alternate narrative among the people in defense of constitutional values. We should leave the issue of uniting the opposition parties to major political parties in the field. He added that the organizers and participants of this meeting are welcome to build your political formation, it should not be our priority at this stage. He emphasized that let us connect ourselves with the efforts of various civil society initiatives being taken in the campaign against Modi and in favor of the constitution and opposition to reach the level of a critical mass in the limited time available to us.

Smt. Manjoo S. Mohan said that we should include the issue of participation of women in power and issue of ownership of Jal Jungle jameen.

Comrade Shri Prabhat Roy, IFS and columnist said that we should reconsider the nomenclature of our unit called Constituent Assembly” of alliance. He supported the idea of systematic alliance. He added that only such a strategy will force the BJP to leave power.

Being the chairman of the meeting Sh. Shaym Gambheer cleared time to time about the misunderstandings of the speakers. He said that the resolution moved by Sh. Vishwatma is well drafted with deep understanding and experience. He said it is very difficult to find any weakness in the draft of the resolution.

Due to the prefixed schedule Sh. Kumar Prashant of GPF and Prof. Jitendra Sharma had left the meeting early to its end. 

In the end Vishwatma thanked all participants for coming and contributing to the meeting. He cleared that those who already agree to work with the democratic process by using the alliance based on written constitution be allowed to work. He added that those who are using other processes to oust BJP from power should also be respected if they could achieve the goal. He suggested all the participants sign the copy of the resolution who agree with a systematic and democratic alliance before departing from the meeting. Consequently 18 participants signed the resolution and accepted the membership of the Constituent Assembly of the Alliance.

The participants of the meeting who approved the resolution moved by Sh. Vishwatma and joined as the Member of the Constitution Assembly of the Alliance.

1. Shri Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay Prize winner and Secretary General Socialist Party (India)

2. Shri Vishwatma, The Founder and Policy Director-Voters Party international, New Delhi

3. Shri Comrade Prabhat Roy, IFS, and columnist

4. Shri Shyam Gambhir Socialist Party (India) Delhi

5. Shri Gagan Gupta, designing consultant Gurgaon. Secretary Global Affairs Committee, Voters Party international

6. Smt. Manjoo Surendra Mohan General Secretary Socialist Party (India)

7. Shri Shivakant Gorakhpuri Secretary General Voters Party International

8. Shri Syed Tahseen Ahmad, State president Delhi, Socialist Party (India) Delhi

9. Shri Satya Prakash Bharat, social activist Delhi

10. Shri Ram Avatar Bansal, member Central executive committee Voters Party International

11. Shri Sadesh Ali Masih, State president Uttar Pradesh Voters Party international

12. Shri Vijay Pal Singh Advocate High court Delhi,

13. Shri Nandram Bagdi, Senior Dalit activist of Delhi

14. Shri Om Prakash Dwivedi Social Activist Kanpur

15. Shri Harendra Suryavanshi, Member Central executive committee Voters Party International

16. Advocate Ram Niwas Yadav, Etah

17. Sh. Vinod Kumar yadav, Social Activist Bagpah

18. Sh. Avdhesh Singh , Pracharak- Voters Party International

19 Sh. Mahesh Manav from We the People

20 Sh. Fasal Khan, Khudaee Khidmatgaar

Note-

1. Some participants opined that they will approve the resolution after thorough study.

2. For joining the Constituent Assembly of the alliance online; kindly click the link given below:

https://www.votersparty.in/join-opposition-constitution-assembly/

3. more than 42 persons have submitted the online form to join the Constituent Assembly of the alliance till the completion date 09.05.2023 of this proceeding. .