New Delhi, Oct 2: Opposition leaders and activists denounced the government on Friday, Gandhi Jayanti, after they were detained at Jantar Mantar for protesting against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Police cited prohibitory orders to bar the leaders from agitating against the top poll official, who has been besieged with allegations of partisanship and undermining the electorate by deleting lakhs of voters.
RJD leader Manoj Jha, CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat, CPI national secretary P Sandosh Kumar MP, CPI Delhi secretary Prof Dinesh Varshney, AISF general secretary Dinesh Seerangara, and social activists Yogendra Yadav and Nikhil Dey were among those detained.
The protest site and the roads leading to it were heavily barricaded.
The irony of police action against protesters on peacenik’s birth anniversary was not lost on Jha, who was taken to the Badarpur Border area of Delhi.
“Today is Gandhi Jayanti… It is shameful that they are behaving like this…” Jha said as he was dragged inside a bus.
“This is all ‘Godse-vadi’ people can do on Gandhi Jayanti. They don’t understand the essence of Gandhi,” he said earlier while the melee was still on.
Asked about permission for the protest, he said, “Protest with permission… in Gandhi’s country?”
Brinda Karat, who came to the spot with scores of her party’s youth wing workers, said every street in Delhi has become Jantar Mantar.
“Godse was Gandhi’s murderer. People of Godse’s ideology are in power in the Centre. Today they are murdering democracy through vote theft,” she said.
“Around 13 crore citizens have been removed from the voter roll. Gyanesh Kumar should resign; the law for appointment of election commissioners should be changed.
“Today every street, every police bus is Jantar Mantar,” Karat said.
Yadav rued that India today is the same as it was under the British.
“There is no freedom of speech … We demand the impeachment of Chief Election ‘Culprit’ Gyanesh Kumar on behalf of the people of India,” he said.
Dey said “satyagraha” was murdered on Gandhi Jayanti.
“We had requested permission for a peaceful protest on Gandhi Jayanti. This is a blot on a nation that was born out of ‘satyagraha’… The only place in Delhi for peaceful protest, Jantar Mantar, is being taken away on Gandhi Jayanti… Section 163 cannot be a law in free Indian democracy,” he said.
The CPI, in a statement, said hundreds of CPI, AISF and AIYF cadres were detained.
“On the day we commemorate Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle for democracy and public probity, the Modi government is using police force to suppress those protesting to defend the vote and save democracy.
“The ‘Vote Chor’ must resign! Our struggle will not be silenced by detention,” the Left party said.
Meanwhile, protesters shouted, “vote chor gaddi chhod” (vote thief, leave the throne), to demand Gyanesh Kumar’s sacking.
Taking a cue from slogans raised in recent protests by women in Delhi, a group of protesters, including Jha, was heard raising the slogan, “Ek Kachori Do samosa, Gyanesh Tera Kya Bharosa.”
Delhi Police detained more than 700 people, including AAP leaders and members of several student organisations, at Jantar Mantar and surrounding areas on Friday.
The police maintained that no permission had been granted for the protest in the area, which remains under restrictions. (PTI)
