Delhi Police Detained Opposition MPs as Protest Over Election Chief Gyanesh Kumar Escalates
Opposition legislators, led by Congress figure Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka, were suddenly seized by Delhi police while marching toward the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters demanding the chief election commissioner’s resignation. They were ferried in a police minibus, released moments later, and immediately resumed the demonstration, setting up a sit‑in outside the ECI.
The protest comes amid a nationwide revision of voter rolls that the EC says is aimed at deleting duplicates and ineligible names. Critics allege the process is biased in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and that more than 130 million names have already been scrubbed from draft lists.
Opposition leaders accuse Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of making unilateral decisions without the assent of the other two commissioners, a claim that has drawn the Supreme Court into the fray. A petition asks the court to examine whether Kumar exercised powers that belong to the entire Commission and whether his actions should be cancelled.
Security was tightened around the ECI, with roads between Parliament and the commission blocked. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge named Kumar’s resignation, the cancellation of the roll‑revision programme and a return to paper ballots as non‑negotiable demands. The BJP condemned the protests, calling them a “sponsored attempt” to destabilise constitutional institutions.
