New Delhi:
Over 1,500 people were detained across Delhi on Saturday as massive police action countered the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) call to gather at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the poll process. 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.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were detained from the plane as soon as they landed in Delhi. Dipke remained in police custody while his paternal grandmother passed away in his hometown in Maharashtra; police said he was told he could leave for the funeralbut by the evening it was not clear if he was to be released.
The detainees were held at multiple locations across the national capital as they tried to join the protest, amid heavy police and paramilitary deployment, barricades and restrictions on movement. Police cited the denial of permission for the protest. Student organisation AISA, led by Neha Bora, sought to hold a dharna near Dilli Haat, about 10 km from Jantar Mantar, but those gathered there were pushed into vans by police wielding batons.
Police sources later said women and senior citizens were being released first, but the massive deployment would continue on Sunday as there could be renewed attempts to protest. The Congress-led INDIA bloc has also called for a protest on Monday.
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‘Arrest Us All’: Rahul Gandhi’s Message From Chennai
Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha) 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. Mark my words: we already have the information we need… Youth of India, I am proud of you. Keep protesting. We are standing with you.” In another post, he said PM Modi “is destroying democracy” and that “his 15-year political drama is coming to an end”.
Gandhi led protests in Delhi on four days this week. On Friday, the INDIA bloc handed a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu.
On Saturday, those detained included Communist parties’ leaders MA Baby, Brinda Karat and Dipankar Bhattacharya, besides activists Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, AAP’s Sanjay Singh, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Gopal Rai, and TMC (Mamata) leaders Derek O’Brien, Dola Sen and Saket Gokhale.
READ | “Black Emergency” Imposed, Says AAP After Several Protesters Detained In Delhi
In preparations for a crackdown, the government, police and other agencies had partly closed the Delhi Metro — 45 stations’ gates remained closed — and cancelled over 250 trains, besides suspending the internet in a 4-km radius around Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory in the heart of Delhi that has served as a protest site for at least three decades. At least 25,000 personnel from Delhi Police and central paramilitary forces were deployed.
Many of the protesters were detained from their homes and hotel rooms before they could move to join the protest. These included YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, who was detained from neighbouring Gurugram.
BJP Says ‘Anarchy Defeated’
BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad defended Gyanesh Kumar and the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls, while decrying the protests.
“India is not a banana republic,” he asserted at a press conference, adding, “Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, this country has never bowed and never will.”
He cited the events of the day and the preceding three days to argue that “two things have become clear”.
“One, Indian democracy has thwarted attempts to incite anarchy. Two, the country will be governed by Parliament, not by the streets,” he said, arguing that a protest without permission would inconvenience people.
“We are not opposed to protests, but you have weaponised street protests because of your electoral defeats,” Prasad said, naming the Congress but not the CJP. He also highlighted the BJP-led NDA’s wins in Friday’s bypolls in Assam, West Bengal and Puducherry.
The protest call, meanwhile, saw support in Mumbai, Chennai, and Ahmedabad among other places. In Mumbai, police detained around 200 people for protesting at the August Kranti Maidan in support of the CJP’s Delhi movement. Those detained included Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson Tushar Gandhi and actor Imran Khan.
‘Make The Whole Country Jantar Mantar’
Back in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal gave a “Delhi chalo” call before he was detained, urging young people across the country to come to the Capital. “Till now, Modi ji used to win elections only by stealing votes. Now he has been caught red-handed,” Kejriwal said. “Wherever Modi ji stops you, sit there. Turn that place into Jantar Mantar. Make the whole country a Jantar Mantar,” he added.
Police had surrounded Kejriwal’s Lodhi Estate residence since the morning. He was detained outside it as he marched towards Jantar Mantar with AAP leaders and workers. As workers tried to hold on to him, police personnel lifted him by his legs and chest and carried him to a police bus. Other AAP leaders were detained with him.
They were released later in the evening, and Kejriwal said, “I want to tell Modi ji: You will run out of space in jails!”
Arvind Kejriwal ji coming out of Jafarpur police station. Long live the revolution. https://t.co/hyPSyYNKd5
— Anurag Dhanda (@anuragdhanda) October 10, 2026
Mamata Banerjee was detained at South Avenue, where she and party leaders staged a sit-in after being stopped from going to Jantar Mantar.
She wore a band-aid over her mouth. “This has gone beyond an Emergency; it has become a Super Emergency,” she said, citing the 1975-77 Emergency imposed by the then PM Indira Gandhi. In a video from inside the police bus, she said, “We the INDIA alliance will continue to fight to strengthen people’s voice.”
READ | After Citing “Other Sorrows”, Sonam Wangchuk’s Hunger Strike Warning Over CJP Protest Crackdown
The detainees were held in large stadiums, many of them released later in the evening. “Imagine being so scared of the Opposition that you make the Delhi Police detain elected reps and drive them around in circles for an hour just to keep them quiet,” Kerala’s former CM Vijayan posted on X. “Modi’s panic is really showing here, and honestly, it’s just embarrassing at this point,” he added.
Activist Sonam Wangchuk also used an Emergency reference. A face of the CJP’s maiden protest that had forced the resignation of the education minister over paper leaks in July, he said India was “in a state of undeclared Emergency”. “I will be compelled to consider an Anshan Fast (hunger strike) or Padyatra March (foot march) if they are not released by tomorrow,” he said. Wangchuk had stayed away from Saturday’s protest, citing his work in Ladakh.
Rahul Gandhi has, meanwhile, said Opposition INDIA bloc leaders will meet Chief Justice Surya Kant at the Supreme Court on Monday to submit a memorandum.
READ | CJP Protest “Flop Show”, Democracy Has Won Over Mobocracy: BJP
The bloc’s memorandum to the President carried four demands: Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation and repeal of the 2023 law that gives the CEC and election commissioners life-long immunity; immediate suspension of the SIR and restoration of all 13.3 crore voters deleted from electoral rolls; a return to paper ballots for all elections; repeal of all Assembly elections held in the last two years “in which conclusive evidence of vote chori has been presented”.
(PTI inputs from New Delhi and Mumbai)
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