CJP’s Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka Sent to Tihar Jail for Five Days Over Jantar Mantar Trespass
New Delhi, October 14, 2026 – Two senior leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were sent to five days of judicial custody in Tihar Jail on Wednesday after a Special Executive Magistrate ordered their remand. Their associate Ajinkya Shinde walked free after signing a fresh peace bond. The three had been placed under preventive arrest following their alleged unauthorised entry into Jantar Mantar a day earlier. According to police sources and multiple reports, the incident unfolded on Tuesday morning, October 13. A group of around 14 CJP members, including Das, Ranka and Shinde, reached the area near the JD(U) office adjoining Jantar Mantar. They reportedly used a lane, climbed over a locked iron gate, entered the site, unfurled the national flag and raised slogans demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The slogans included calls for Kumar to step down over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, along with “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.” Jantar Mantar had been denotified as a designated protest venue just a day earlier, on October 12. Delhi Police had identified alternative sites such as Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground for demonstrations. Officers said the CJP group breached barricades and entered without authorisation. All 14 were detained and initially taken to a police station some distance away. Phones were seized, according to the party. Delhi Police registered a case against the three leaders on charges that include trespassing, violating prohibitory orders, breaching a peace bond and obstructing a public servant from discharging official duties. Sources indicated the action also involved provisions under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) related to preventing breach of peace. Das and Ranka were treated as repeat violators because they had signed bonds only days earlier promising to maintain peace for one year. That earlier bond stemmed from a detention on Saturday, October 10. Das, Ranka and CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke had been detained after landing in Delhi ahead of a planned protest. An executive magistrate ordered their release the next day on the condition that they maintain peace and good behaviour for a year. Police sources said the Tuesday entry at Jantar Mantar amounted to a clear breach of those conditions. On Wednesday morning, the three were produced before the Special Executive Magistrate at Mandir Marg. Das and Ranka were remanded to five days’ judicial custody and lodged in Tihar Jail. Shinde was allowed to leave after completing bond formalities. CJP’s legal team, including advocate Abhisht Hela and legal head Ratna Singh, described the process as involving preventive arrest. Singh stated on X that the leaders had not been allowed to meet their lawyers until late at night and were brought to Parliament Street police station around 3 am in a private van. She maintained their spirits remained high despite what the party called illegal actions. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke reacted strongly. In posts on X, he accused the government of crushing dissent and using “cowardly tactics.” He shared video footage of the Tuesday entry showing members scaling the gate with the tricolour and raised slogans. “You cannot denotify the resistance,” he wrote, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Later, after the custody order, Dipke said Das and Ranka had shown the country that the only way to stand up to what he called a bully was never to bow down, no matter the consequences. The broader context is CJP’s ongoing campaign against the SIR exercise and related electoral concerns. The party has staged several protests in recent days, leading to multiple detentions. Police have maintained that the denotification of Jantar Mantar followed legal requirements, including compliance with a Supreme Court order, and that alternative venues remain available. Officials stressed that the leaders’ actions after signing peace bonds left little room for leniency. Reports from India Today, The Indian Express, Rediff, The Print, The Quint and others confirmed the custody order and the sequence of events. Police sources consistently described the entry as unauthorised trespass after the site’s status change. CJP continues to frame the episode as an attempt to silence protest. Das and Ranka will remain in Tihar for the five-day period unless further legal developments intervene. Shinde’s release on bond closes one chapter of the immediate case while the larger dispute over protest spaces and electoral processes continues. The episode highlights the tight restrictions now placed on one of Delhi’s traditional protest locations and the swift use of preventive measures and bond conditions against organisers who return to the same site. Both sides – police and CJP – have drawn clear lines. One insists on law and designated venues; the other insists the right to protest cannot be denotified. For now, two of the party’s most visible faces are behind bars for five days. Sources: @Rohit Manral
Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Detained After Hours-Long Sit-In Against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Released Later
It was one of those days in the capital when the usual parliamentary noise spilled out onto the streets and stayed there for hours. Around 10:30 in the morning, Opposition MPs from the INDIA bloc gathered at Makar Dwar of Parliament House. They carried a simple banner that read “Election Commission is compromised – Sack Gyanesh Kumar.” Their plan was straightforward: walk a few hundred metres to Nirvachan Sadan, the Election Commission headquarters, and demand a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. They never made it that far. Delhi Police had already put up layers of barricades near the NITI Aayog office on Parliament Street. The march was stopped. Some leaders sat down on the road. Rahul Gandhi and Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee climbed onto the iron barricades and waved the Tricolour. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was briefly put into a police bus, got down again, and joined her brother. Then, in a move that caught many by surprise, Rahul, Priyanka, K.C. Venugopal and a few other Congress MPs slipped into the compound of Akashvani Bhawan – the All India Radio building that sits just metres away from the Election Commission office. They sat under a tree. White mattresses appeared. Slogans against “vote chori” and the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls continued. Rahul kept repeating that all they wanted was to meet the three election commissioners – Gyanesh Kumar, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi – and hand over their demands: resignation of the CEC, scrapping of the SIR exercise, and restoration of deleted voter names. Hours passed. Police kept asking them to leave. Rahul told officers he was comfortable sitting there and would stay as long as needed. “We represent the voice of the nation. If representatives can’t meet the election commissioners, what’s the meaning of democracy?” he said at one point. Later he posted on X: “Gyanesh, it’s done bro. Time to resign.” By late afternoon the sit-in had stretched past eight hours. Around 7:50 in the evening, police moved in. They cleared the premises, forced the leaders into buses, and took them to New Police Lines at Kingsway Camp in north Delhi. Roughly 50 MPs and about 200-250 supporters were detained, according to police sources. Rahul resisted briefly and tried to climb out of a bus window. Priyanka was released first, then reportedly went back toward the area where her brother was being held before she too was let go. Rahul and the others walked free around 10:10-10:15 pm – roughly two hours after detention. Congress called the action heavy-handed. Priyanka said after her release, “The nation has never seen a coward government like this… Staging protest is our right.” Party leaders asked what the government was afraid of. The Opposition has been building pressure for weeks after reports that the two other Election Commissioners had recorded formal objections at least 14 times in ten months over decisions on voter rolls, Form 6 changes, centralisation of data and deletions in states like West Bengal. They allege the SIR process has led to large-scale deletions of genuine voters – figures of over 13 crore have been cited in political speeches – while the government and BJP call the charges baseless and accuse the Opposition of misleading the public. BJP spokespersons dismissed the protest as political theatre. Delhi Police said the MPs had entered Akashvani Bhawan without permission and that action was taken to maintain public order. The Election Commission later said it had received a meeting request late in the evening but the proposed venue did not match protocol. The protest is part of a wider campaign that began after the Indian Express report on internal dissent within the three-member Commission. Opposition parties have already staged nationwide demonstrations, burned effigies in some places, and spoken of moving a formal removal notice in Parliament. AAP and DMK stayed away from Tuesday’s march, while Biju Janata Dal MPs joined. By Wednesday morning the leaders were free, the streets were clear again, and both sides were preparing for the next round. The INDIA bloc has signalled it will continue pressing the same three demands. The government and the Commission maintain that the electoral process remains independent and that the revision exercise is being carried out as per law. What happened on Tuesday was not a quiet petition. It was a public standoff that lasted nearly nine hours, ended with detentions, and left the core questions about the Election Commission’s functioning still hanging in the air. Sources:The Hindu (live updates and reports, 6-7 October 2026)Telegraph India (7 October 2026)India Today (6 October 2026)Indian Express (6 October 2026)News18, Rediff, Statesman, PTI inputs and police statements as reported across outlets. @Rohit Manral
Hundreds Detained as Delhi Protest Against CEC Gyanesh Kumar Enters Third Day; Journalist Who Alleged Cop Harassment Among Those Held
New Delhi, October 4, 2026 – The protest demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar stretched into its third straight day on Sunday, and by evening the streets around Ashoka Road and the Shangri-La intersection looked like a scene of mass detention. Hundreds of students, activists and ordinary citizens were picked up by Delhi Police as they tried to march towards Jantar Mantar. Among those taken away was AISA national president Neha Bora – detained for the third consecutive day – and a woman journalist who only a day earlier had accused a police officer of sexual harassment while covering the same agitation. The march, organised under the banner of the All India Students’ Association and backed by several civil society groups, began from Andhra Bhawan circle in the afternoon. Protesters carried placards calling for Kumar’s resignation and an immediate halt to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. They alleged that the SIR process had led to large-scale and irregular deletion of voter names. The crowd included students from different universities, members of youth organisations, and a few senior activists who have been part of the stir since Friday. Police had already put up multiple layers of barricades. When the march reached the Shangri-La intersection, officers blocked the road. What followed was a familiar pattern of the past three days: pushing, dragging, and people being forced into buses and private vehicles. Videos circulating later showed male officers handling women protesters, and one clip captured a man being shoved into a bus with his head pressed down. Neha Bora was taken around 5 p.m. AISA claimed she was pulled into a private SUV by male personnel who were not wearing name badges, and that no woman officer was present inside the vehicle. Her colleagues said they did not know her exact location for some time. Police later confirmed she had been detained and taken to Narela Industrial Area police station. She was released in the evening, as were most others. The woman journalist who had alleged sexual harassment on Saturday was also among those detained on Sunday. She had gone to the Parliament Street police station the previous night with her complaint, and on Sunday she joined the march. After being taken away she told people nearby, “Instead of arresting the accused police officer, they have detained me. Is this justice?” Delhi Police has said that three women journalists filed complaints of sexual harassment against officers during Saturday’s protest, and that the complaints have been transferred to the Crime Branch for inquiry. No FIR has been registered so far, according to reports. Estimates of the number detained varied. Some accounts put the figure at around 250, others said nearly 500 people were picked up from different points in central Delhi and shifted in 10 to 15 buses. Police sources later spoke of roughly 110 detentions and claimed 12 to 15 officers were injured during scuffles. Heavy deployment – nearly 5,000 personnel including Rapid Action Force units, drones and CCTV monitoring – was visible throughout the day. Prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS remain in force in the New Delhi district. The protest itself is part of a wider anger over the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls. Opposition parties and activists have accused the Election Commission of opacity and of allowing deletions that could affect the fairness of future polls. The Commission has maintained that the exercise is meant to clean up duplicate and ineligible entries. Gyanesh Kumar has not issued any public comment on the street protests. On the ground, the mood among those who managed to stay out of police vans was defiant. “We will come again tomorrow,” several young protesters said as they regrouped near the barricades. Similar demonstrations were reported in Mumbai, where the Thackeray brothers led a march on the same issue. By late evening most of those detained had been released. The journalist who alleged harassment was also let go. But the questions she and the other two women raised remain unanswered. The Crime Branch inquiry is yet to begin in earnest, and the demand for Kumar’s removal continues to echo on Delhi’s streets for a third day. Sources:The Hindu, Indian Express, The Wire, Times of India, CNBC-TV18, Telegraph India, Deccan Herald, News18, Hindustan Times (reports dated 3–5 October 2026).
Congress Hits Streets Across India Demanding CEC Gyanesh Kumar Quit; AISA’s Neha Among Those Picked Up at Jantar Mantar
Yesterday on Friday the Congress and a bunch of student and civil society groups went all out against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. They’re saying he has to resign, some are even calling for his arrest. The whole thing is boiling over because of that Special Intensive Revision of the voter lists and that report about two other Election Commissioners raising objections several times. In Delhi the main action was around Jantar Mantar. AISA had called a protest, and a lot of familiar faces showed up – Neha Bora (she’s the AISA president), Dipankar Bhattacharya from CPI(ML), Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Anjali Bhardwaj and others. Police said nobody had taken permission, so they started rounding people up. Neha was among those detained. They took her to Kanjhawala police station. From there she sent out a video saying basically, “We only came to demand accountability. We’ll be back tomorrow.” Altogether police picked up around 150 people from three spots near Jantar Mantar and DDU Marg. Most were released by evening. Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav was also detained when his group tried to march towards the Election Commission office. It wasn’t just Delhi. Congress workers came out in a lot of places. In Patna the police turned water cannons on them. Same thing in Chandigarh. In Imphal they used tear gas. In Guwahati they detained Gaurav Gogoi. In Lucknow the state Congress president was taken away. People burnt effigies, shouted slogans, the usual scene. K.C. Venugopal from the Congress made it clear they’re not stopping. He said the protests will continue till Kumar goes. They’re talking about moving notices in Parliament and they’ve already announced district-level protests for Monday. There’s a CWC meeting on Tuesday too. The other side is saying this is all political drama. The Election Commission maintains that internal differences are normal and the final decisions on the SIR were unanimous. Police keep repeating that no permission was given, so they had to clear the area. That’s pretty much where things stand right now. The opposition is treating this as a big fight over the fairness of the electoral process, and the government and the EC are holding their line. Looks like next week is going to be noisy as well. Sources: The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Siasat, Telegraph India, Deccan Chronicle, National Herald (25-26 September 2026 reports). @Rohit Manral