NEW DELHI: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi grew livid after she was prevented, along with the rest of the party workers, from marching towards Jantar Mantar and lambasted the government over its handling of the opposition protest against Election Commission chief Gyanesh Kumar.“Is this the way? You can see what they are doing,” Priyanka said shortly before she was forcefully bundled into the police bus amid high-voltage drama.“This is how they treat Members of Parliament (MPs) who are asking simply to meet the Election Commissioner. This is how they treat us. They are beating MPs. The policemen have scratched me all over. They have thrown us to the ground. Now, we are not going to move from here. Let them bring their forces back. I will not move from here,” she was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.Before she was detained, Priyanka lay down in the middle of a road packed with protesters and security personnel, alleging that cops had “scratched her all over” and “thrown” her to the ground.
As Priyanka was lying down, Congress and INDIA bloc leaders encircled her.
As Priyanka was lying down, Congress and INDIA bloc leaders encircled her, along with Rahul Gandhi, to prevent cops from getting close to her. However, soon after, Rahul was picked up and detained.Congress MP Charanjit Singh Channi said, “We want to go towards the ECI office; this government has resorted to hooliganism. There is no democracy…We are being stopped.”“It is our democratic right; we are fighting for this right. Article 19 grants us permission to protest in this manner, and Jantar Mantar is a designated spot; if we cannot stage a protest here, then where else can we do it?… We are fighting for our rights—fighting for the rights of the country’s voters—yet every time, we are being stopped in this struggle. We are being prevented from even entering this designated protest site, Jantar Mantar; Members of Parliament are being stopped from entering...It is not the Delhi Police‘s fault; their boss is a coward,” Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Pawan Khera said.As he got off the bus of INDIA bloc MPs, RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha said, “This is a launch. Not just Gyanesh Kumar; this Government is going out now. They are launching a lathi charge on the soul of India, on the democracy of India. Shame on such people.”Kumari Selja, AICC General Secretary and Congress Uttarakhand in-charge, said, “An institution that ought to be the guardian of our Constitution and our democracy—today, it seems the guardian itself has become the predator. The Election Commission—or rather, the Chief Election Commissioner—bears significant blame for the clouds of suspicion hovering over our democracy and the threats to its survival,” she said.
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CPM MP John Brittas said, “Malayali, Kashmiri, everyone is here. Everyone is united to bring down Gyanesh Kumar. We are all together.”Just hours earlier, Rahul Gandhi had stepped up his attack on Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, who has been in the Opposition’s crosshairs over his functioning and reported dissent among his subordinates.Rahul Gandhi, declaring that he would launch a fresh protest from Jantar Mantar, said, “Gyanesh Kumar will have to resign,” and called him an “illegitimate” poll body chief.“Our plan is to go to the designated protest site, Jantar Mantar, and sit there together once again, and tell the country that, for us, Gyanesh Kumar is not the legitimate Election Commissioner of the country,” he said.
