New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday occupied the centre stage of the opposition’s street protest, forcing a total lockdown of Parliament Street as he led an over eight-hour sit-in that ended with his forcible detention after opposition MPs were stopped from marching towards the Election Commission’s office nearby.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and others were released after 10 pm after about two hours in detention.
High drama unfolded throughout the day starting with the opposition march on the “vote chori” allegation from the Parliament House around 10 am amid heavy barricading by police.
While most opposition MPs were detained and prevented from moving forward, Rahul Gandhi along with other Congress MPs including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra entered the Akashvani Bhawan premises, barely 200 metres from the EC office, insisting that they be allowed to meet the election commissioners.
Their sit-in, which began around noon, ended after 8 pm, when a large number of police personnel forcibly removed Gandhi from there and pushed him and others into police vans and buses, as the MPs resisted. There were scenes of jostling and scuffling between protesters and police, with a policeman seen locking his arms around Rahul Gandhi from behind.
Police said nearly 250 people were detained.
Rahul Gandhi, TMC’s Derek O’Brien and a Samajwadi Party MP, besides Priyanka Gandhi and K C Venugopal and others were taken in different vehicles to various police stations and released after a brief detention, capping an action-packed day of opposition protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
“To save the traitors of democracy, the remnants of democracy have been dragged. There will be accountability – not a single traitor will be spared,” Rahul Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X, soon after he was detained and taken to Kingsway camp police lines.
Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat have “hijacked” the country through “vote chori”. They were helped by Gyanesh Kumar, he added.
“What has been done to our country is treason. Nobody is going to escape,” he asserted.
The Congress leader also said that he was standing to protect democracy in the country, along with 300 Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs.
“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,” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said earlier.
The Congress said that “LOP-Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has been dragged away from a peaceful sit-in protest” and called it a “sign of a regime that knows its exit is imminent”.
Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that “considerable nervousness is evident in the behaviour of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister”.
Earlier, Gandhi remained holed up inside the AIR in a defiant standoff with the police, who largely remained passively resolute in preventing the protesters from reaching the Election Commission office.
At one point during the march, Gandhi, buoyed by cheers of onlookers, climbed atop multi-layer steel barricades and waved the tricolour, before slipping through the police cordons to sneak into the premises of All India Radio (AIR).
The march was the latest in a series of protests by politicians and civil activists to press for CEC Kumar’s resignation since a September 25 Indian Express report that suggested irregularities in the SIR process and differences among the election commissioners.
EC sources said that it has not received any request from any political party for any meeting.
The opposition claims that CEC Kumar is working at the behest of the government to ensure that the election process favours the ruling party.
The BJP, which held four back-to-back press conferences, including one after Gandhi’s detention, slammed the march and claimed that it was yet another attempt by the Congress and its allies to create anarchy and relaunch Gandhi.
Several Union ministers also attacked the Congress leader with the ruling party accusing Gandhi of being ‘kaamchor’ and saying he should work on the ground rather than just accuse others of being “vote chor”.
Most of the opposition MPs, including Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee and Derek O’Brien, and CPI(M) MP John Brittas, were detained at the start of the march and taken away in buses but were later released.
Mindful of the chaos that had unfolded during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) march to Parliament on July 20, police had cordoned off roads in a diameter of roughly two kilometres around the Election Commission office on Ashoka Road well in advance.
As MPs were being detained, Gandhi spoke to his sister seated inside one of the buses and dashed towards the reception entrance of Akashvani Bhawan, the headquarters of AIR, catching many opposition MPs, including some from his own party, by surprise.
At the reception entrance, staff tried to prevent Gandhi from entering, leading to the long standoff. He eventually pushed his way inside, accompanied by his security personnel. He sat under a tree as the staff of the broadcasting house rushed outside to watch the unfolding drama.
Besides the Gandhi siblings, the Congress leaders who joined them inside the AIR premises included Deepender Hooda, Charanjit Singh Channi, Praniti Shinde, K C Venugopal and Pawan Khera.
Several MPs, including Brittas, returned to the protest site after being released from detention.
Leaders who had been taken away in buses were back as the gathering continued into the afternoon. Refreshments began arriving for those inside.
During the march, opposition MPs were seen carrying cutouts depicting Kumar in an RSS uniform and raised slogans, including ‘BJP hi CEC hai’, ‘Vote chor, gaddi chhod’ and ‘Democracy not for sale ‘.
In a post on X earlier, Rahul Gandhi said, “Gyanesh it’s done bro. Time to resign”.
MPs from Biju Janata Dal, which has not been part of the INDIA bloc, also joined the march, with the Congress asserting that the solidarity of the opposition to defeat the nefarious designs of “the PM-HM duo” will most definitely be sustained whether it comes to “vote chori” or delimitation.
However, erstwhile INDIA bloc members DMK and AAP kept away from the protest.
Hitting out at the INDIA bloc, Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that through this march, they are “venting their frustration” over their electoral defeats by levelling baseless allegations against the constitutional bodies to malign their image.
BJP spokesperson, Sudhanshu Trivedi, slammed the opposition parties for “theatrics on the streets” and asked the Congress whom it wants to benefit by providing voting rights without verification to those identified as “absent, shifted, dead and duplicate” voters.
In July, Rahul Gandhi had led a sit-in outside the Prime Minister’s Lok Kalyan Marg residence, demanding the resignation of PM Modi over the police action against students protesting on the NEET paper leak issue.
In August, he held a six-hour dharna at the Parliament Street police station, demanding an FIR for an alleged pellet gun injury suffered by a youth during the July 20 protest.
