Kejriwal, Mamata detained in Delhi during protest demanding Indian poll chief's removal

Highlight:

• Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal were detained during Delhi protests.
• Opposition leaders demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
• Protesters accused electoral roll revisions of favouring Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP.
• Police detained demonstrators and imposed tight security restrictions across Delhi.
• Opposition parties alleged voter deletions undermined electoral fairness and democracy.
• Protesters demanded accountability from the Election Commission over alleged electoral irregularities.

Indian opposition leaders and activists, including Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Pinarayi Vijayan, Neha Bora, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, are among those detained in New Delhi today (10 October) during protests against the country's Election Commission.

The Delhi Police detained former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, along with party colleague Dola Sen, as she was sitting on a "dharna", a way of showing one's disagreement with something by refusing to leave a place, against Indian Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on the road near the South Avenue bus stand in the Indian national capital, reports Hindustan Times.

Earlier, Mamata, chief of the All India Trinamool Congress, said she would join the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) protest at Jantar Mantar seeking the removal of Kumar as CEC.

Police detained scores of protesters and their leaders in the Indian capital today amid patrols by thousands of security forces, with travel and telecoms links suspended, in a lockdown to stop the protest asking the election chief to quit.

The ‌protest by the "Cockroach" youth movement aimed to draw thousands of demonstrators against CEC Kumar over a revision of voter lists that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

"Long live the revolution," chanted some of the young protesters in central Delhi, chased by police, who dragged scores of others into buses to be taken away, even as more arrived, a Reuters witness said.

"This is violating the rights of the people and the country will not tolerate ​this anymore," Yogendra Solanki, one of those being pushed into a bus, told Reuters.

Police also detained CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and senior leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka as the ​aircraft bringing them to Delhi arrived from Mumbai, the CJP said in a statement.

"I have come to be arrested, arrest me ... I am not afraid of ⁠you guys," Dipke told police officers who spoke to the trio on board the aircraft, television images showed.

"No, this is not an arrest," one police officer replied. "Please cooperate."

In a pre-recorded video posted on X, Dipke said the youth movement's organisational in-charge, Ajinkya Shinde, will lead its protest at Jantar Mantar.

Dipke said today he recorded a video last night, anticipating a possible arrest. 

Germany-based YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was also detained at his residence in Kendriya Vihar society in Gurugram's Sector 56 this morning after he declined requests from Gurugram and Delhi police teams not to travel to Delhi for the demonstration, police said.

Delhi locked down to foil protest

CJP condemned the "authoritarian detention" of its leaders, which it called a "pre-planned interception" aimed at crippling the leadership of Saturday's rally, and demanded their immediate release, reports Reuters. 

Representatives of two digital media outlets said on X that police had detained four of their reporters while they were covering the protest.

Some lawyers protesting outside the Supreme Court were also detained, the president of its bar association posted on X.

There was no immediate comment from police on the detentions.

Elsewhere across the city of 20 million people, 45 metro stations and markets were shut, and mobile internet services were suspended in the central business district.

Police boarded buses to check for protesters after stopping them at entry points into the city. Cars and other vehicles were also subjected to checks, Reuters witnesses said.

Barricades and concrete blocks obstructed traffic, while anti-riot vehicles equipped with tear gas guns were stationed on key routes, they said.

"Why is the prime minister so scared of the country's youth, the country's people?" Dipke had asked before leaving for Delhi.

"Why did you need to close all the railways, the metro, the internet has been closed, roads have been closed? ... This is nothing but fear," he told the ANI news agency in the financial capital of Mumbai.

The protesters aimed to gather at Jantar Mantar, a protest site designated by authorities in the heart of New Delhi, at 10am, but security restrictions delayed their schedule.

New challenge to Modi

The protest, which the CJP called an effort to "Save Democracy", is planned as the largest in a series of demonstrations launched last week after the Indian Express newspaper reported that Kumar's deputies had questioned and disagreed with him over revisions to voter lists that removed about 130 million voters.

That number exceeds Japan's population.

Opposition parties have long accused the government of trying to manipulate voter lists to its advantage and were quick to revive the allegations following the report.

Kumar has not commented, but the Election Commission and the BJP have denied the allegations.

The BJP says Modi's popularity and India's economic growth are key reasons for its electoral dominance and accuses opposition parties of misleading the country because they are unable to win elections.

Nonetheless, near-daily protests by opposition groups pose a new political challenge to Modi, just months after similar demonstrations forced his education minister to resign over exam paper leaks.

They also come months before a series of key state elections scheduled to begin in early 2027.

On Friday, Delhi police said they had not granted permission for the protest and that violators would face the law. However, the CJP stuck to its plan, citing the exercise of a fundamental right.

Deletions affected state polls, opposition alleges

The protesters accuse the BJP of using voter list revisions to influence election results, in collusion with its appointees in the Election Commission, including Kumar.

Opposition parties say the deletion of voters affected the outcomes of some recent state elections won by the BJP, casting a shadow over elections in the world's largest democracy.

Election Commission data shows that about 130 million names were deleted from voter lists during the verification exercise, including 63 million people who had relocated, 30 million who could not be traced and 28 million who had died.

The commission says the figure represents voter entries flagged during the draft revision stage and that voters wrongly removed can register again.