NEW DELHI — Defying heavy police resistance and large-scale detentions across the national capital, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) alongside allied student and youth organizations declared on Saturday that they will stage daily long marches to Jantar Mantar until Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar resigns or is dismissed.
The demonstration was organized to demand the immediate ouster of the CEC over alleged systemic electoral irregularities. Central Delhi turned into a virtual fortress on Saturday as paramilitary forces and Delhi Police deployed barricades and riot gear to block demonstrators heading toward the historic protest ground.
Prominent opposition figures—including former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan—were intercepted and detained by law enforcement while en route to join the demonstration, before being released following hours of high-stakes political standoff.
Tensions escalated earlier in the day following the arrest of CJP founder Abhijit Dipke and All India Students’ Association (AISA) leader Neha Bora, moves denounced by organizers as an authoritarian crackdown on young citizens. In Dipke’s absence, CJP leader Ajinkya Shinde assumed charge of the coordination committee, declaring that detentions would not break their resolve: “The march toward Jantar Mantar will continue unabated until our demands are met.”
Extending full solidarity, Students’ Federation of India (SFI) General Secretary Srijan Bhattacharya issued a call for decentralized agitation across the country. “From Sunday, student protests will expand nationwide,” Bhattacharya stated. “Wherever police raise barricades to halt our march, that barricade itself will transform into a Jantar Mantar.”
Estimates of the crackdown’s scale varied widely: broadcaster NDTV reported over 1,500 detentions, whereas The Indian Express placed the figure above 6,000.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi announced that the INDIA bloc would orchestrate nationwide demonstrations on Monday, alongside plans for an opposition delegation to submit a joint memorandum to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant.
Posting on social media platform X from Chennai, Gandhi expressed unwavering backing for the demonstrators:
“Arrest every leader. Arrest every youth. Arrest every single one of us. We are closing in on you, and we will not back down. We already have the information we need. Young India, I am proud of you. Keep protesting, we stand with you.”
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defended the police measures, characterizing the containment of the rally as a victory for civic order. Senior BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad rebuked the opposition and Gandhi’s rhetoric, maintaining: “India is not a ‘banana republic.’ Under the decisive leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this nation has never bowed to lawlessness, and it never will.”
Sources: NDTV, The Indian Express, and Indian National News Agencies.