Government scared, has turned anti-CEC protests against themselves: CJP

New Delhi: The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Sunday alleged that the government was "scared" and therefore turning the protests against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar into an agitation "against themselves".

Addressing a press conference hours after being released by a Delhi court following preventive arrest, CJP co-convener Ashutosh Ranka said: "In the last 72 hours, the country has witnessed peak authoritarianism. Thousands of peaceful protesters who wanted to stage an agitation at a designated protest site have been detained from across the country."

Blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, he said: "The situation has been made so worse that we were 'kidnapped' from the flight yesterday."

Comparing the security arrangements in Delhi to those of the Emergency in 1975, he said: "The events that have taken place in the last 72 hours have even left behind the stories of Emergency that we heard from our parents."

"One thing has become clear: the fight that was against the Election Commission and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has been turned by PM Modi and Amit Shah into a fight against themselves," he claimed.

Ranka further said that the Election Commission, whose responsibility is to protect and strengthen democracy in the country, "is working entirely at the behest of PM Modi and Amit Shah, to make the BJP win elections".

Referring to the demise of CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke's grandmother on Saturday, he said: "Even when Dipke was informed about the unfortunate news, Delhi Police showed an extremely inhuman face. They tried to make the event into a spectacle by showing up with cameras and microphones.""Dipke kept pleading to speak to his cousin since his parents are heart patients and get anxious easily, but Delhi Police did not relent," he claimed.

Stating that the "fight has just begin", the CJP leader remarked that the government should be "ashamed of converting this into a war".

Moments before the press conference, Dipke said that he is heading to his hometown in Maharashtra to attend the last rites of his grandmother, while asserting that CJP "will neither back down nor be intimidated".

Expressing condolences over Dipke's loss, Ranka said: "Abhijeet is not someone who will make a spectacle of his loss. We all stand with him in this moment of grief."

Meanwhile, the CJP thanked opposition leaders for taking part in the protest.

"The way four former Chief Ministers -- Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Manik Sarkar, Pinarayi Vijayan -- came out on the streets yesterday with the students and youth of this country, we wholeheartedly thank them for the fight they waged to save the democracy of this country's people," Ranka said.

Further, he alleged that members of left-wing student organisations, including SFI and AISA, were "brutally detained".

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