The Congress has planned the next gathering of the INDIA bloc leaders in Mumbai on March 16 or 17 when the formal campaign for the parliamentary election will be launched.

Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will also culminate in Mumbai at that time and the agenda for a new justice regime for farmers, women, youth, workers and participation will be unveiled. All the INDIA partners are being invited to the meeting to showcase the strength of the united Opposition after the Patna rally on Sunday.

Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said seat-sharing arrangements had been finalised everywhere except Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir, indicating that the Opposition alliance would be able to ensure one-on-one fights in a large number of constituencies. He asserted that the exit of Nitish Kumar and Jayant Chowdhary hadn’t made any difference to the Opposition’s strength as people were fed up with the government whose sole achievement was growing economic inequality and social polarisation.

Rahul, during his Nyay Yatra, has tried to portray Narendra Modi’s 10-year tenure as “Anyay Kaal” in which every section of the society has suffered. While he has framed the discourse as “90 per cent suffering masses versus the rest”, he has targeted the youth in a big way using unemployment, the Agniveer scheme, the paper-leak case and reckless privatisation as the scourge for their future.

Rahul has met youth delegations in the course of the Nyay Yatra to highlight the "fallacy" of the Angiveer scheme and the causes of rising unemployment. After worshipping at the Mahakaal temple in Ujjain on Tuesday, he told a gathering: “Modi is closing all the doors for 90 per cent of the population which comprises OBCs, Dalits, tribals, minorities and the poor among the general castes. The public sector units that created jobs for these sections are being privatised. The only option for the youth of these sections is to waste time on mobile, chant Jai Shri ram and die of hunger.”

On paper leaks, he posted a message on social media: “This is not a problem in Uttar Pradesh alone. This has become a curse for youth across the country. There have been over 70 incidents of paper leak in the last seven years, affecting over two crore students. There is a need to break the criminal nexus between corrupt officials, cheating mafia and private printing press and fix accountability in the government. We are preparing a fool-proof plan to deal with this crisis.”

The Congress also raised the issue of the State Bank of India (SBI) approaching the Supreme Court seeking time to furnish information about electoral bonds. Party president Mallikarjun Kharge said: “The Modi government is using the largest bank of our country as a shield to hide its dubious dealings through electoral bonds. The tenure of this Lok Sabha will end on June 16 and the SBI wants to share the data by June 30. The BJP is the main beneficiary of this fraudulent scheme.”

Kharge further said: “Isn’t the government conveniently hiding the BJP’s shady dealings where contracts of highways, ports, airports, power plants, etc… were handed over to Modi’s cronies in lieu of these opaque electoral bonds? Experts say that the 44,434 automated data entries of donors can be divulged and matched in just 24 hours; why does the SBI then need four more months to collate this information?”

Congress social media head Supriya Shrinate told a media conference: “Who is mounting pressure on the SBI? Why is the SBI acting like a frontal outfit of the BJP? A vast bank which handles 48 crore accounts needs five months to gather data about 22,000 electoral bonds?”

Rahul too had commented on this on Monday night, saying: “Modi has deployed all his resources to hide his ‘chande ka dhandha’ (business of donations). Why does the SBI want to block the information when the Supreme Court ruled the public has the right to know the details of electoral bonds? Seeking time till June 30 for something that can be gathered with a click of a button exposes the scandalous nature of the deals. Every independent institution has become part of the ‘Modani Parivar’ to conceal their corruption. This is the last attempt to hide Modi’s real face before the election.”