NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Thursday allowed opposition leaders to reach Raj Ghat, where they staged a brief protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. This came after two days of police stopping INDIA bloc leaders from marching to their chosen protest sites.“INDIA alliance MPs staged a peaceful sit-in at Raj Ghat today. Here, they paid homage to Bapu and prayed for the Modi government to be endowed with sound judgment. Modi, Shah, and Gyanesh Kumar are together snatching away the public’s right to vote. We will not allow this to happen under any circumstances,” Congress said.The change in police approach came on the third day of the opposition’s protests over the report of “dissent” in the Election Commission, its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and allegations of “vote chori”.On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi and opposition MPs were stopped as they marched near the Election Commission office. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi subsequently ducked the cops and staged an eight-hour sit-in at the Akashvani Bhawan complex.The Congress described the surprise move as “dhappa”, a Hindi expression for a game of tag or hide-and-seek, and shared a map showing how Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi changed their route to enter the complex after policestopped their march.The opposition met in central Delhi on Wednesday for lunch and, within an hour, attempted to march to Jantar Mantar but was stopped by police, with several leaders, including the Gandhi siblings, being detained. Police also registered FIRs in connection with the two flash protests.On Thursday, the opposition once again came up with a new destination and decided to head to Raj Ghat after a lunch meeting hosted by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at a restaurant in Connaught Place.The leaders left the venue in buses, with Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other INDIA bloc leaders travelling together.The convoy then reached Raj Ghat, where the leaders held a short protest before leaving.The development was notable because Delhi Police had imposed prohibitory orders at Raj Ghat earlier in the day itself. However, despite the restrictions, the opposition leaders were allowed to reach the memorial.Unlike the previous two days, there was no prolonged face-off between the protesters and police, or mass detention of opposition leaders.The police action and detention of opposition leaders had itself become a major part of the political messaging in the last two days, with Congress leaders accusing the government of preventing them from exercising their right to protest.Ahead of the protest, Rahul Gandhi continued his attack on the government and the Election Commission, alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and CEC Gyanesh Kumar had “hijacked” India through a “criminal conspiracy”. He said they would be “brought to justice”.Kharge, meanwhile, said the INDIA bloc leaders would hold a peaceful sit-in at the Gandhi memorial and “pray” for Modi and Shah to be blessed with wisdom.The BJP, meanwhile, hit out at the Congress. Addressing a press conference, spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari questioned Rahul Gandhi, alleging a lack of trust in the Supreme Court to deal with the appeals regarding the SIR exercise.
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Attacking the Congress, the BJP leader framed it as a fight between the Gandhi-Vadra family and the people of India.“The Congress party is fighting against ‘We, the People of India.’ This battle has become one of the Congress party—its workers and the Gandhi-Vadra family—versus the people of India, who are silently witnessing the party’s hooliganism. They used to speak about returning to ballot papers. Yet, we recently saw elections held in places like Assam and Tripura; the Congress party lost there too, even though EVMs were not the only factor,” Bhandari said.
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