Dragged from Jantar Mantar: hundreds detained on day three as protests against the Election Commission reach Mumbai

For the third consecutive day, the national capital's most famous protest address became a dragnet. On Sunday, thousands of young protesters and opposition parties took to the streets of Delhi and Mumbai demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and for the third consecutive day, the police answered with detentions. In Delhi, the mobilisation began near Andhra Bhawan Circle on Ashoka Road in the early evening, with All India Students' Association members and supporters raising slogans against the Election Commission as they marched towards Jantar Mantar. Heavy barricading met them. Police stopped the march before it could reach the designated protest site and detained several participants, loading them into buses. AISA national president Neha Bora was detained while leading the march. In Mumbai, opposition leaders Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray led parallel protests calling for the scrapping of the electoral roll revision and Kumar's resignation. The detentions have become a daily ritual. On Saturday, around 150 people were detained as protesters again attempted to march towards Jantar Mantar; among them were Bora, activist Yogendra Yadav and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, while senior lawyers Kapil Sibal, Nitya Ramakrishnan and Pallav Sisodia joined the demonstration. On Friday, more than 700 protesters were detained, including AAP leaders Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Sanjay Singh, RJD's Manoj Jha, CPI(M)'s Brinda Karat and M. A. Baby, and student activists. Eleven Metro stations were shut, internet services were suspended for twelve hours within a 1.5-kilometre radius of Jantar Mantar, and Delhi Police, the Rapid Action Force and the CRPF were deployed. The protesters' testimony is ugly. Speaking to ANI, one demonstrator said: "My clothes were torn, I was dragged along the streets, and women were injured too. What exactly was the Delhi Police's problem with the peaceful protests held by students, the youth, and citizens?" Another said the gathering demanded "the immediate resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner of India... He is the number one vote thief." Protesters say a nationwide voter-roll revision exercise launched last year has disenfranchised millions of eligible voters by removing them from electoral rolls, and allege the changes benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party. The Election Commission and the BJP deny the allegations. The anger is not abstract: in Karnataka, a special investigation team has charge-sheeted a former BJP MLA in a 5,994-voter deletion racket, and Bihar's roll revision has become a national flashpoint. Reuters, reporting the escalation, noted that these demonstrations represent the latest in a series of youth-led challenges to Modi's government, unprecedented in his twelve years in power. Three days, over a thousand detentions, shut Metro stations, an internet blackout around the protest site, and FIRs against students and lawyers. The Election Commission is a constitutional body whose authority rests on public trust. When citizens march to its doorstep with questions about the voter rolls, the answer cannot be a bus to the police station.