New Delhi, Oct 6: Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday occupied the centre stage of the opposition’s street protest, forcing a total lockdown of Parliament Street as he tried to march towards the Election Commission’s office nearby with hundreds of supporters and other opposition MPs.
At one point, buoyed by cheers of onlookers, he climbed atop multi-layer steel barricades, stood on it and waved the tricolour, before slipping through the police cordons to sneak into the premises of All India Radio.
Until just before sunset, he remained holed up inside the AIR compound in a defiant standoff with the police, who largely remained passively resolute in preventing the protesters from reaching the Election Commission office.
“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,” he said. “If they don’t want us to sit here, give us some other site.”
The march was the latest in a series of protests by politicians and civil activists to press for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh 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.
Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat have “hijacked” the country with Kumar’s help by carrying out “vote chori”.
“What has been done to our country is treason. Nobody is going to escape,” he asserted.
His sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who also sat with him on dharna, had a private discussion with a senior police officer, apparently in a bid by the administration to break the impasse over the Leader of Opposition’s insistence on a meeting with Kumar.
The BJP, which held as many as three press conferences within a matter of a few hours, slammed the march and claimed that it was yet another attempt by the Congress and its allies to create anarchy and relaunch Gandhi.
The ruling party also accused Gandhi of being ‘kaamchor’, alleging he should work on the ground rather than just accuse others of being ‘vote chor’.
The day-long drama began with the march being stopped soon after it started from Parliament House around 10 am, following which the opposition MPs sat on the street in front of Akashwani Bhavan just about 200 metres from the Election Commission office.
Most of them, including Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party and TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee and Derek O’Brien, and CPI(M) MP John Brittas, were detained and taken away in buses and released later.
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 Bhavan, 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 staff of the broadcasting house rushed outside to watch the unfolding drama. Several took selfies with Gandhi before security personnel restrained them. Some climbed onto the building’s terrace to get a view, prompting police to ask them to come down.
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, 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 leaders kept away from the protest.
Asserting that more than 300 opposition MPs marched from Parliament to meet the Election Commissioners, Gandhi said, “We represent crores of Indians. Why aren’t the Election Commissioners meeting us? Why is the police stopping and threatening us?”
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 Sambit Patra criticised Gandhi, accusing him of trying to spread “confusion” and “boost his politics” by misquoting the Supreme Court.
Another 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 of those identified as “absent, shifted, dead and duplicate” voters. (PTI)
