Parliament street shuts down for much of the day; opposition parties step up protest against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, leaders held

Escalating the bitter political fight over the special intensive revision of electoral rolls by the Election Commission, INDIA bloc MPs, led by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest Tuesday and attempted to march to the Commission headquarters, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The standoff with the police through much of the day ended in the evening with the detention of Gandhi and several leaders including Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Among those who joined the march from Parliament towards Nirvachan Sadan – it was the second such joint street protest since the rollout of the SIR – were SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee, NCP (SP)’s Supriya Sule, RJD’s Manoj Kumar Jha and CPM’s John Brittas.

Gandhi and Congress MPs including Vadra, K C Venugopal, Pawan Khera, Imran Pratapgarhi, Charanjit Singh Channi, Praniti Shinde and Deepender Hooda forced their way into the premises of the Akashvani Bhavan, situated next to the EC headquarters, where they staged a sit-in there for several hours before being detained by police.

All roads leading to the Nirvachan Sadan were heavily barricaded by police. The standoff began when Gandhi and others were stopped by police near Akashvani Bhavan. Gandhi, who climbed atop the barricades, was detained and was seen walking towards a parked police bus. He then spoke to his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and they, along with some Congress MPs, entered the Akashvani Bhavan complex.

“All I want to do is meet the Chief Election Commissioner and tell him that he has done ‘vote chori’. I can continue to sit here. I am comfortable here. If they don’t want us to sit here, give us some other site,” Gandhi said.

Targeting the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister and the RSS chief, he alleged that the country had been “hijacked” with the “vote chori”.

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“What has been done to our country is treason. Nobody is going to escape,” he said. In a post on X as the march began, Gandhi said, “Gyanesh it’s done bro. Time to resign.”

The standoff ended eight hours later when police detained the leaders after several rounds of discussions, and heated exchanges.

Posting a video of his detention, Gandhi said, “To save the traitors of democracy, the remnants of democracy have been dragged. There will be a reckoning – not a single traitor will be spared.”

Late in the evening, the detained leaders were taken to the Kingsway Camp police facility. After one set of leaders were taken inside, police had to close the gate as scores of Congress workers reached the spot. Vadra, who was in another bus, could not be taken inside because of the surging crowd. She was seen climbing the gate after which the police opened the gates to let her in.

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The Opposition stepped up its demand for CEC Kumar’s resignation after an investigation by The Indian Express last month revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected on record 14 times in 10 months to steps taken by the Commission under the CEC, from keeping them in the dark to adding new voters and deleting names.

While the DMK, which was part of the protest last year, was missing Tuesday, the Opposition camp got unexpected support from the BJD. The Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha party sent two of its MPs to participate in the march. For many years, the BJD had maintained equidistance from the NDA and the INDIA bloc.

But there were rumblings within the INDIA bloc after the protest. Some allies of the Congress felt “mistreated” because the Gandhi siblings stole the show by sitting in protest at Akashvani Bhavan.

Around noon, all INDIA bloc MPs were in buses and were subsequently taken to different police stations, but the Gandhis and their close aides stayed back.

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Sources said Congress’s Venugopal later conveyed to the INDIA bloc parties that the party leadership had acted on the spur of the moment, and that he regretted the “mistrust” that had been created by not keeping allies in the loop.

Only after calls from the Congress did the TMC leaders reach the AIR office later.

Some Opposition leaders also said that the Congress’s decision to demand a meeting with the Election Commission was not something that the allies would have agreed to.

“Why would we meet the ECI when we are demanding the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar? If this was discussed with the allies, we wouldn’t have agreed,” a Left MP said.