{"id":2287,"date":"2026-10-07T20:03:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2287"},"modified":"2026-10-07T20:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:03:44","slug":"rahul-gandhi-indian-opposition-lawmakers-detained-over-election-chief-protest-for-second-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2287","title":{"rendered":"Rahul Gandhi, Indian opposition lawmakers detained over election chief protest for second day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Indian \u200bpolice detained opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and several lawmakers for the third time in two \u200cdays on Wednesday as they launched an unannounced protest demanding the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Opposition parties, their student units, and the \u201ccockroach\u201d youth movement have been staging almost daily demonstrations seeking Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar\u2019s resignation, \u200bafter the Indian Express newspaper last month reported disagreements within the poll panel over updating voter \u200blists, stoking concerns over its neutrality.<\/p>\n

Opposition lawmakers led by Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi protested \u2060on Tuesday as well, seeking a meeting with Kumar and his deputies, before police broke up their gathering \u200band briefly detained them.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s protest began after a lunch meeting of lawmakers that Congress organised at a restaurant \u200bin central Delhi, close to the Jantar Mantar site where authorities permit demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday\u2026Delhi Police stopped us and said you cannot protest here\u2026so today\u2026we will go to the designated protest site, sit there, and tell the country that, for us, Gyanesh Kumar is \u200bnot the legitimate commissioner,\u201d Gandhi told reporters, referring to Jantar Mantar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who have done this (vote theft) \u200bare traitors\u2026Gyanesh Kumar will have to resign,\u201d he said, before boarding a bus that was to take the lawmakers to Jantar \u200cMantar.<\/p>\n

<\/a>New political challenge to Modi<\/h3>\n

Lawmakers in the bus held posters against the windows that said, \u201cno vote theft, no democracy theft\u201d, and \u201celection commission, not BJP commission\u201d, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of Congress members accompanied the bus on foot amid heavy deployment of police and paramilitary personnel in riot gear. Police also closed \u200bthe road leading to \u200bJantar Mantar, forcing the \u2060bus to take a detour.<\/p>\n

Gandhi later stepped out of the bus, with a live feed on his party\u2019s YouTube channel showing him standing at the centre of a crowd \u200bof protesters and security personnel, while his sister Priyanka Vadra and other lawmakers \u200bsprawled out \u2060on the road.<\/p>\n

Visuals showed security personnel hauling Gandhi and Vadra into separate vehicles and taking them away.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate comment from the police on the detentions.<\/p>\n

The demonstrations present a new political challenge to Modi midway into his \u2060third term, \u200bjust months after similar protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) \u200byouth movement forced the resignation of his education minister over exam paper leaks.<\/p>\n

Kumar has not commented on the voter lists issue, but the \u200bElection Commission and BJP have denied accusations of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian \u200bpolice detained opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and several lawmakers for the third time in two \u200cdays on Wednesday as they launched an unannounced protest demanding the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists. Opposition parties, their student units, and the \u201ccockroach\u201d youth movement have been staging almost daily demonstrations seeking Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar\u2019s resignation, \u200bafter the Indian Express newspaper last month reported disagreements within the poll panel over updating voter \u200blists, stoking concerns over its neutrality. Opposition lawmakers led by Congress party…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}