Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday accused the Narendra Modi government of imposing an “undeclared Emergency” and said Opposition leaders will meet the Chief Justice of India (CJI) on Monday evening to press their concerns over the crackdown on a youth-led protest in the capital a day earlier.
“The Prime Minister and the home minister have created chaos across the country. An undeclared Emergency is prevailing, and we will continue to fight against it,” Kharge said.
The protest he referred to took place on Saturday, when the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) called a major demonstration in Delhi demanding the resignation of the chief election commissioner over alleged voter roll irregularities. The capital was turned into a fortress, with central Delhi sealed, mobile internet blocked at several locations and thousands of security personnel on the streets.
Deep Dive
Why did the CJP-led protest in Delhi demand Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation?
Why are Opposition leaders meeting the Chief Justice of India after the Delhi protest crackdown?
What did the Opposition plan to do in Delhi on Monday after the CJP protest?
More than 2,000 people were detained on Saturday, with Delhi police citing the figure at nearly 2,500. Among those detained were also CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and two other party leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, as their plane landed in Delhi.
CJP called it an attempt to “cripple the leadership” of a peaceful protest before it reached the venue.
Delhi police described the arrests of party leaders as a precautionary step to maintain law and order.
The action also swept up Opposition leaders who tried to join the protest.
Former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, former Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan and former Tripura CM Manik Sarkar were detained, along with Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary MA Baby and CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya.
Kharge said the scale of the security deployment spoke for itself. “Yesterday, nearly 32,000 police personnel and 7,500 CRPF personnel were deployed. This itself shows how much fear the government has of the youth agitation,” he said.
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Taken together, those figures add up to 39,500 personnel in a single day. At nearly 2,500 detentions, that works out to roughly one detention for every 16 personnel deployed.
He also listed what he called curbs on ordinary life in the city. “As I have already stated, roads were blocked, communication channels were disrupted, access to the airport was restricted, and mobile networks were shut down. All this demonstrates that the government does not want democracy to function peacefully in India,” he said.
On Sunday, an executive magistrate court released Dipke and the two other CJP leaders on the condition that there will be no breach of peace for one year. The party had vowed to continue the protest, but with the city still under heavy security, the turnout was small.
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Against this backdrop, Kharge and Lok Sabha leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi have both written to the CJI, and the Opposition has sought time between 4pm and 5pm on Monday.
“We cannot demand anything from him, but we will place our concerns before him with folded hands and request his intervention,” he said.
“Amit Shah’s Delhi police has itself descended into thuggery,” Rahul Gandhi said, alleging that workers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were being encouraged to attack women and youth.
Gandhi said the anger among Gen Z and students will only swell with every act of suppression. He dared Shah to bring 10,000, 20,000 or even 40,000 police to the streets, a number close to the 39,500 personnel Kharge cited for Saturday.
“We are not the ones to get scared. We are not the ones to back down. This fight is not going to stop now!” Gandhi said, announcing that Congress, the entire INDIA alliance and the country’s youth will take to the streets again on Monday.
He said the CJI meeting will carry a direct message. “On Monday, we will also meet the Chief Justice and demand that when the Constitution is being torn to shreds on Delhi’s streets and democracy is being crushed, the guardians of the law cannot sit with blindfolds on,” he said.
“The Election Commission is a constitutional body. It is an independent institution and has the authority to make decisions independently. However, it is not being allowed to make decisions independently,” Kharge said.
He claimed that insiders have already raised the alarm. “Two members of the Election Commission have openly exposed how the Commission is functioning, what kind of irregularities are taking place in it, and what the members of the Commission themselves feel about this situation. Despite this, no action has been taken in this matter,” he said.
His sharpest attack was aimed at a 2023 law on the appointment and service conditions of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners. The Act replaced the CJI on the selection panel with a Union minister and shields poll officials from legal proceedings for acts done in the course of their duties.
“After providing this protection, the entire process of vote theft, EVM manipulation, and electoral fraud was set in motion. No matter how many mistakes the CEC makes, they have been granted lifelong immunity from accountability for those mistakes,” Kharge said.
The Election Commission has earlier rejected allegations of vote theft. The Centre and the BJP did not immediately respond to the remarks in reports available on Sunday.
The Monday meeting will now put the judiciary at the centre of a widening political confrontation. In a single day, leaders from Bengal, Delhi, Kerala, Tripura and the Left were detained on the streets of the capital, handing the Opposition a shared grievance it will carry into the week ahead.
Kharge made it clear that the Congress will not step back, whatever the outcome of the meeting. “We will continue our fight to protect democracy and the constitutional rights of the people,” he said.