NEW DELHI: Police detained scores of protesters and their leaders on in the Indian capital on Saturday amid patrols by thousands of security forces, with travel and telecoms links suspended, in a lockdown to stop a youth protest asking the election chief to quit.
The protest by the “Cockroach” youth movement aimed to draw thousands of demonstrators against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a revision of voter lists that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Long live the revolution,” chanted some of the young protesters in central Delhi chased by police, who dragged scores of others into buses to be taken away, even as more arrived, a Reuters witness said.
“This is violating the rights of the people and the country will not tolerate this anymore,” Yogendra Solanki, one of those being pushed into a bus, told Reuters.
Police also detained ‘Cockroach Janta Party’ founder Abhijeet Dipke and senior leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka as the aircraft bringing them to Delhi arrived from Mumbai, CJP said in a statement.
“I have come to be arrested, arrest me … I am not afraid of you guys,” Dipke told police officers who spoke to the trio on board the aircraft, television images showed.
“No, this is not an arrest,” one police officer replied. “Please cooperate.”
DELHI LOCKED DOWN TO FOIL PROTEST
CJP condemned the “authoritarian detention” of its leaders, which it called a “pre-planned interception” aimed at crippling the leadership of Saturday’s rally and demanded their immediate release.
Representatives of two digital media outlets said on X that police detained four of their reporters while covering the protest.
Some lawyers protesting outside the Supreme Court were also picked up, the president of its bar association posted on X.
There was no immediate comment from police on the detentions.
Elsewhere across the city of 20 million, 45 metro stations and markets were shut and mobile internet suspended in the central business district.
Police boarded buses to check for protesters after stopping them at points of entry into the city, with cars and other vehicles also subjected to checks, Reuters witnesses said.
Barricades and concrete blocks stopped traffic, while anti-riot vehicles mounted with tear gas guns were stationed on key routes, they said.
“Why is the prime minister so scared of the country’s youth, the country’s people?” Dipke had asked before leaving for Delhi.
“Why did you need to close all the railways, the metro, the internet has been closed, roads have been closed? … this is nothing but fear,” he told the ANI news agency in the financial capital of Mumbai.
The protesters aimed to gather at Jantar Mantar, a protest site designated by authorities in the heart of New Delhi, at 10 a.m., but security curbs delayed their schedule.
NEW CHALLENGE TO MODI
The protest, which the CJP called an effort to “Save Democracy”, is planned as the biggest of a series of demonstrations launched last week after the Indian Express newspaper said Kumar’s deputies had queried and disagreed with him over list revisions that dropped about 130 million voters.
That number exceeds the population of Japan.
Opposition parties have long accused the government of trying to fix voter lists to its advantage and were quick to resurrect the allegations following the report.
Kumar has not commented but the Election Commission and the BJP have denied the allegations.
The BJP says Modi’s popularity and India’s economic growth are key reasons for its electoral dominance and accuses opposition parties of misleading the country as they are unable to win elections.
Nonetheless, the near daily protests by opposition groups pose a new political challenge to Modi, just months after similar demonstrations forced his education minister to quit over exam paper leaks.
They also come months before a series of key state elections starting in early 2027.
On Friday, Delhi police said they had not given permission for the protest and violators would face the law, but the CJP stuck to its plan on grounds of exercising a fundamental right.
DELETIONS AFFECTED STATE POLLS, OPPOSITION ALLEGES
The protesters accuse the BJP of using the revision of voter lists to sway election results, in collusion with its appointees in the Election Commission, including Kumar.
Opposition parties say the voter deletions affected the outcome of some recent state elections won by the BJP, and have cast a shadow on elections in the world’s largest democracy.
Election Commission data shows about 130 million names, have been deleted from voter lists during the verification exercise, including 63 million who relocated, 30 million who could not be traced, and 28 million dead.
The commission says the count represents voter entries flagged during the draft revision stage and voters wrongly removed can enroll again.
