New Delhi: A day after the INDIA bloc’s show of unity march in central Delhi, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday (October 13) said that there are “no parallel protests” and that “there is only one protest” which has “one mission: restoration of democracy” in India.“We are all standing here together as one. As I said yesterday, there are no parallel protests. There is one singular protest, and the protest has one mission: restoration of democracy in India. Democracy has been destroyed in this country,” he said “The election system has been destroyed. The Constitution has been torn up and thrown away. We are fighting together to restore democratic rule, genuine democratic rule in this country.”Gandhi’s remarks came while addressing a joint press conference after he hosted a tea meeting with 16 parties of the INDIA bloc. The meeting came a day after Gandhi and other top opposition leaders held a march, that was attended by several thousands, from Delhi’s Barakhamba Road demanding Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation that culminated in the Supreme Court where the leaders filed a joint petition against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls. During the meeting on Tuesday, the leaders decided to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government’s denotification of Jantar Mantar as the designated protest site and reclaim it as a part of the movement.‘The net is closing around them’“The one method of expression of democracy was Jantar Mantar and now the government has decided that Jantar Mantar can no longer be used to express democratic feelings. Well, we are going to challenge that idea,” said Gandhi. “It is not going to be so simple for the government to decide that the Indian people will not fight for their voice. The people who have done this, they need to understand that the net is closing around them. It is not going to be so simple that you can destroy the Indian Constitution and get away with it.”Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)) general secretary M.A. Baby also said at the press conference that along with “vote chori” the BJP has now resorted to “protest site chori.”“Earlier, they were indulging in vote chori but now they are resorting to protest site chori,” he said.Both Communist Party of India’s (CPI’s) D. Raja and Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD’s) Tejashwi Yadav also raised the denotification of Jantar Mantar at the press conference, with the latter calling it a “sign of fear” from the BJP.At the press conference, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sagarika Ghose called the BJP government in West Bengal “illegitimate due to vote chori” and said that the movement started by the opposition would continue until Kumar is removed.Sources said that during the meeting the INDIA bloc members exchanged feedback on the last week of protests. The Wire has learnt that during the meeting opposition members felt that the march on Monday (October 12) showed that the movement had generated good momentum, with not just political leaders but spontaneous participation of the general public. While the daily protests may see a pause with the festive season getting underway, the leaders felt that the protests should continue, with Delhi remaining as the focus. However, coordinated decentralised protests are expected to continue at the state level. The opposition has kept up the pressure demanding Kumar’s resignation since October 6, when they first sought to march to the Election Commission of India (ECI) but were stopped by the police, which then saw Gandhi staging an 8-hour dharna at the Akashwani Bhawan premises. The next day they sought to march to Jantar Mantar but were stopped by the police and faced detentions, this was followed in the week by a visit to the Gandhi Smarak, and a meet with the President Droupadi Murmu with a memorandum against Kumar. The march on Monday, ended the week of street protests, and came after two days of widespread detentions by the Delhi Police of those who responded to the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP’s) protest call on Saturday (October 10).At the meeting, sources said that suggestions were also made to conduct a mock parliament on November 1 when the INDIA bloc will hold a rally in Delhi in Ramlila Maidan. Suggestions were made that mock parliament, public hearing-like proceedings could include testimonies from disenfranchised voters from different states, as well as an impeachment motion against Kumar.‘An expression of the people of India’Like the march on Monday, besides the members of the INDIA bloc, members of the civil society including lawyer Prashant Bhushan, activist Yogendra Yadav, and student leaders All India Students’ Association (AISA) president Neha Bora and Students’ Federation of India (SFI) leader Aishe Ghosh were also present. Besides the fact the fact that they are part of the student organisations of INDIA bloc parties Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPI (ML)) Liberation and CPI(M) respectively, sources said that the move to bring them onboard was also intended towards bringing civil society and student organisations on the same platform and give the message of unity. “Yesterday you saw an expression, not of the political parties standing here, but an expression of the people of India. We were there, but what happened yesterday could not have happened without the expression of the average citizen of this country, non-political citizen of this country,” said Gandhi at the press conference. “So the first thing as a group we would like to do is we would like to thank the people of Delhi, the people of India who stood with us against what is being done. This is not about us, this is about the people of India, this is about the future of the people of India.”Other opposition members who attended the meeting included Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi along with Harender Malik, Anand Bhadauria, and Mohibullah Nadvi (Samajwadi Party), Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP)), Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPI (ML) Liberation), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (Shiv Sena-UBT)), among other opposition leaders as well as N. Sai Balaji of the CPI(ML).