New Delhi:
Asserting that they are unfazed by the mass detentions on Saturday, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and multiple student organisations announced another demonstration at Jantar Mantar at 10 am on Sunday, defiantly vowing to march to the protest site every day until Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resigns or is removed over allegations of “vote chori” and “collusion” with the ruling BJP.
“The government must have thought we will return home after the detentions today. This fear of [PM Narendra] Modi and [Home Minister Amit] Shah shows we have won half the fight,” said CJP national organisation in-charge Ajinkya Shinde, who’s leading the protest as top leaders of the pressure group, including its founder Abhijeet Dipke, remained under detention.
At least 3,000 people were detained, and later released, in a police crackdown across Delhi following the CJP’s call to gather at the protest site on Saturday in the heart of the national capital.
CJP leaders decried what they termed “brutal torture of innocent protesters” and said they did not know where Dipke and others had been taken after being picked up by cops from the plane as soon as their flight landed in Delhi around 11 am. They also said Dipke was being treated “inhumanely” and not being allowed to go for the last rites of his grandmother, who died in his hometown in Maharashtra earlier in the day.
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Ajinkya Shinde was designated to lead the protest by Dipke in his absence.
“Every day, there will be marches to Jantar Mantar from now on, until Gyanesh Kumar is sacked as CEC,” said Shinde.
Srijan Bhattacharyya, General Secretary of the Student Federation of India (SFI), called for the “broadest possible unity against this dictatorial regime”, targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “From Sunday, student protests will spread to different corners of the country. They will peacefully demonstrate everywhere, and wherever they are blocked by police barricades, that area will become a ‘Jantar Mantar’.”
The Congress-led INDIA bloc has also called for a protest on Monday, when its leaders are scheduled to meet Chief Justice Surya Kant at the Supreme Court to submit a memorandum, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said.
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On Friday, the bloc handed a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu carrying four demands: Kumar’s resignation and repeal of the 2023 law that gives the CEC and election commissioners life-long immunity; immediate suspension of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls and restoration of all 13.3 crore voters deleted from electoral rolls; a return to paper ballots for all elections; and repeal of all Assembly elections held in the last two years “in which conclusive evidence of vote chori has been presented”.
Over 1,500 people were detained across Delhi on Saturday as police, citing the denial of permission for the protest, moved to thwart the CJP’s call to gather at Jantar Mantar. Those detained included four former chief ministers: AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, Trinamool Congress founder Mamata Banerjee, and the Left’s Pinarayi Vijayan and Manik Sarkar.
Dipke was detained along with CJP leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das. His paternal grandmother died in his hometown in Maharashtra while he was in custody; police said he was told he could leave for the funeral, but it was unclear by evening whether he would be released.
At least 25,000 personnel from Delhi Police and central paramilitary forces were deployed, gates at 45 Delhi Metro stations were closed, over 250 trains were cancelled, and internet services were suspended within a 4-km radius of Jantar Mantar. Police sources said women and senior citizens were being released first, but the deployment would continue on Sunday.
Rahul Gandhi, who is in Chennai for a student outreach event, posted on X: “Arrest all the leaders. Arrest all the young people. Arrest us all. We are surrounding you, and we are not going to back down… Youth of India, I am proud of you. Keep protesting.”
Before he was detained, Kejriwal urged protesters, “Wherever Modi ji stops you, sit there. Turn that place into Jantar Mantar.” Banerjee said the situation “has gone beyond an Emergency; it has become a Super Emergency”.
BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad defended Gyanesh Kumar and the SIR. “One, Indian democracy has thwarted attempts to incite anarchy. Two, the country will be governed by Parliament, not by the streets,” he told a press conference.
In Mumbai, police detained around 200 people protesting in solidarity at August Kranti Maidan, including Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson Tushar Gandhi and actor Imran Khan. Protests and detentions were also reported from Ahmedabad and Chennai, among other places.
(With PTI inputs)
