Second day, second Opposition protest against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, detentions again

5 min readLucknow, New DelhiUpdated: Oct 8, 2026 05:22 AM IST

Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Mallikarjun Kharge during Opposition party protest march against CEC in New Delhi on Wednesday. (Express Photo by Anil Sharma)

Pressing for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Opposition leaders staged a protest for the second consecutive day in the heart of the Capital Wednesday before they were stopped and detained by police.

The Samajwadi Party, however, stayed away from the INDIA bloc protest. On Tuesday, after the Opposition protest, Congress allies had expressed concern that it had been turned into a Rahul Gandhi “show”. The SP skipped the lunch hosted Wednesday by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at the Sagar Ratna restaurant on Janpath.

From the restaurant, Opposition MPs, including Gandhi, Mamata TMC’s Derek O’Brien, CPI(M)’s John Brittas and CPI’s P Sandosh Kumar, boarded three buses to head towards Jantar Mantar. Over the next couple of hours, as the buses crawled forward, Congress workers walked alongside.

Police, however, blocked the way and the march came to a halt near Windsor Place. Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra lay on the road, clutching a copy of the Constitution, along with other women leaders.

Congress MP along with Rahul Gandhi detained during protest against CEC near Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday. (EXPRESS PHOTO BY PRAVEEN KHANNA)

Later, police forcibly removed Congress workers and detained the Gandhi siblings and other senior leaders. Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan was among those who had joined the protest.

“We are not going to stop protesting till Gyanesh Kumar resigns. This is a fight to protect the most sacred thing in this country. There is nothing that Narendra Modi and Amit Shah can do that will stop us,” Gandhi said.

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra holds a copy of the Constitution while being detained in New Delhi on Wednesday. (Photo: Anil Sharma)

He thanked all INDIA bloc MPs “standing firm in defence of our democracy – in Parliament, outside on the streets, and today near Jantar Mantar”.

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The Congress called for more protests at state, district and block levels on Thursday.

The party also played down the absence of SP MPs from Wednesday’s lunch meeting, saying they had left Delhi the night before or early Wednesday. The SP’s absence, it is learnt, also came up during the discussions over lunch. Later in the day, INDIA bloc leaders reached out to the SP, which agreed to send its representatives for the protest Thursday, sources said.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge coming out of Sagar Ratna with Congress leaders and other party leaders, in New Delhi on Wednesday. (EXPRESS PHOTO BY PRAVEEN KHANNA)

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, said all alliance parties were invited to the lunch. “But the decision for lunch had been taken late last night and communicated. It was therefore natural that some parties could not be represented. There is needless comment in some sections of the media on it. INDIA and other Opposition parties are united and stand in solidarity against Vote Chori, SIR and Delimitation,” he said.

SP leaders whom The Indian Express spoke to blamed the patchy coordination by the Congress. A party MP said, “The Samajwadi Party did not attend the lunch by the Congress because of lack of proper coordination from the Congress side. Samajwadi Party MPs left for their constituencies on Tuesday evening after the protest against the CEC ended. Until then, there was no information about the lunch.”

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Sources in the SP said the party leadership and the MPs were upset with the Gandhi siblings for “stealing the show” Tuesday. “It is true that we are not happy with the poor coordination by the Congress regarding the protest at Akashvani Bhavan. It was supposed to be a joint protest by the INDIA bloc, and not by the Gandhis. The next big election in the country is in Uttar Pradesh, where the Samajwadi Party has a bigger stake than the Congress. Akhilesh Yadav raised the concerns about SIR in Uttar Pradesh more aggressively and effectively, while the Congress leadership only took symbolic steps during the SIR in UP earlier this year. But the Congress in Delhi tried to portray that only it was serious about SIR,” an SP leader said.

The developments are playing out against a key backdrop: the UP Assembly elections early next year. In the politically significant heartland state, the SP and the Congress are allies and as the polls approach, a tussle over seat distribution has begun.

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Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More

Lalmani is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, and is based in New Delhi. He covers politics of the Hindi Heartland, tracking BJP, Samajwadi Party, BSP, RLD and other parties based in UP, Bihar and Uttarakhand. Covered the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024; Assembly polls of 2012, 2017 and 2022 in UP along with government affairs in UP and Uttarakhand. ... Read More