Defiant CJP vows to return to Jantar Mantar today

NEW DELHI: The plan was to assemble at Jantar Mantar, but it was not to be. A sea of khaki and blue-green fatigues, metal barriers and buses parked askew on streets turned the country’s address of dissent into a fortress on Saturday. An unprecedented security clampdown and the detention of over 7,000 protesters by 7pm, including CJP leader Abhijit Dipke, four former chief ministers and YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, helped the government thwart a planned mass mobilisation at Jantar Mantar.

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) had called for a demonstration to demand Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, accusing him of masterminding voter-list manipulation during the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll.

Jantar Mantar 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. What was meant to be a collective gathering soon spilled into streets, intersections and alternative meeting points across Delhi.

The protesters moved between locations, searching for places to assemble and trying to find others who had set out for Jantar Mantar. At several points, slogans rang out before police personnel moved in, chasing protesters and detaining them.

The protest was scheduled to begin at 10:30 am, but security personnel prevented the participants from reaching Jantar Mantar, where prohibitory orders were in force. Some protesters were detained near the venue, while others scattered into adjoining areas in an attempt to continue the demonstration elsewhere.

By afternoon, the planned gathering at Jantar Mantar had become a series of smaller demonstrations across Delhi. Streets and intersections became temporary meeting points as protesters searched for one another, raised slogans and tried to keep the protest going despite the repeated dispersals and detentions.

The detention of CJP leaders at the Delhi airport in the day added to the confusion, leaving other organisers to coordinate the protest amid rapidly-changing circumstances. Ajinkya Shinde, who was made the national organisation incharge of the CJP, called on people to continue the demonstration wherever they were stopped.

Opposition parties likened the situation to one worse than the Emergency, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi urging the youth to “keep protesting.”

Several opposition leaders, including former chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Pinarayi Vijayan and Manik Sarkar, were detained from multiple locations across the capital as they tried to join the protest.

The BJP said the protest meant to take the city “hostage” turned out to be a “flop show.”

The CJP has called for a fresh round of protests on Sunday.