Democracy trampled, dissent muzzled by Modi-led govt

New Delhi: An unprecedented security clampdown and the detention of over 7,000 protesters, including CJP leader Abhijit Dipke, four former chief ministers and YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, helped the government thwart a planned mass mobilisation at Jantar Mantar on Saturday to press for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, wore a deserted look throughout the day, with the deployment of over 30,000 security personnel and waves of barricades in Lutyens' Delhi to keep the protesters away from the area. Opposition parties likened the situation to one worse than the Emergency, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi urging the youth to "keep protesting" and asserting that "we are going to ensure that this regime and the people who have attacked the Constitution are defeated".

Several opposition leaders, including former chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal (AAP), Mamata Banerjee (TMC), Pinarayi Vijayan (CPI-M) and Manik Sarkar (CPI-M), were detained from multiple locations across the capital as they tried to join the protest called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). "This has gone beyond an Emergency; it has become a Super Emergency," Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Banerjee said. Several detained leaders claimed that they were driven around in police vehicles for hours. CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby, veteran Left leader Brinda Karat, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, activist Yogendra Yadav, lawyer Prashant Bhushan and All India Students' Association (AISA) president Neha were also detained. Gandhi, who was in Chennai for his Chhatron Ki Goonj event, also said the "core characteristic" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS is "cowardice". The Congress, which has been holding protests demanding the resignation of the CEC over alleged vote theft, however, maintained its distance from the CJP protest. Dipke and two CJP leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were detained by Delhi Police from inside the aircraft as soon as their flight from Mumbai landed in the national capital. In a video shared by the CJP, Dipke could be heard telling police officers who entered the aircraft, "We are here to be arrested, come and arrest us." Before the detention, police personnel told the CJP leaders that they did not have permission to hold their protest at Jantar Mantar. Dipke said CJP leaders were being detained as if they were criminals. He said that even former prime minister Indira Gandhi did not do this, adding that it amounted to dictatorship. Rathee, who lives abroad and had come to join the CJP protest against CEC Kumar, was detained by police from his residence in Gurugram's Sector 56 on Saturday. Around 1 pm, scores of protesters hurled stones at security personnel near Akashwani Bhawan on Imtiaz Ali Marg after jumping barricades, injuring two police personnel. The protesters were quickly detained by security personnel. In the evening, a similar incident happened near Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place, where some protesters threw stones at security personnel.

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The Hans India