NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday criticised the Centre over the detention of opposition leaders and activists during protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise at Jantar Mantar.“When a government becomes weak, it resorts to injustice. When the time comes for a government to leave office, it files false cases and puts pressure on people,” Yadav said.“Those who have been winning elections through the Election Commission have faced allegations from time to time. People across the country and all political parties are raising questions about the credibility of the Election Commission and the government. At such a time, the government and constitutional institutions should at least remain impartial. They compromise their impartiality because they appear weak. Their time is up, and that is why they are resorting to injustice and sending people to jail,” he added.
Opposition leaders detained
RJD leader Manoj Jha, CPM leader Brinda Karat, CPI national secretary P Sandosh Kumar, CPI Delhi secretary Prof Dinesh Varshney, AISF general secretary Dinesh Seerangara, and social activists Yogendra Yadav and Nikhil Dey were among those detained.Delhi Police detained more than 700 people, including AAP leaders like Atishi and members of several student organisations like Neha Bora, at Jantar Mantar and surrounding areas, according to police. The protest site and roads leading to it were heavily barricaded.Police maintained that no permission had been granted for the protest in the area, which remains under restrictions.‘Vote chor, gaddi chhod’Jha, who was taken to the Badarpur Border area, criticised the police action on Gandhi Jayanti.“Today is Gandhi Jayanti… It is shameful that they are behaving like this…” news agency PTI quoted Jha saying as he was taken inside a bus.“This is all ‘Godse-vadi’ people can do on Gandhi Jayanti. They don’t understand the essence of Gandhi,” he said earlier.
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Brinda Karat said, “Godse was Gandhi’s murderer. People of Godse’s ideology are in power in the Centre. Today they are murdering democracy through vote theft,” and called for Kumar’s resignation.Social activist Nikhil Dey said, “We had requested permission for a peaceful protest on Gandhi Jayanti. This is a blot on a nation that was born out of ‘satyagraha’… The only place in Delhi for peaceful protest, Jantar Mantar, is being taken away on Gandhi Jayanti… Section 163 cannot be a law in free Indian democracy.”Protesters raised slogans including “vote chor gaddi chhod” demanding Kumar’s removal. A group also raised, “ek kachori do samosa, Gyanesh tera kya bharosa.”The CPI said hundreds of its, AISF and AIYF cadres were detained and accused the government of using police force to suppress the protest.
