The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) and allied youth organisations have said they will keep marching toward Jantar Mantar in Delhi every day until Chief Election Commissioner J Gyanesh Kumar steps down or is removed from office, bdnews24.com reports.
The announcement came after a day of heavy police action across the capital in which thousands of demonstrators were detained, according to the outlet. Organisers said the scale of the crackdown had not shaken them.
The CJP has been staging protests over alleged irregularities in the electoral process and has made Kumar's resignation its central demand. According to bdnews24.com, the party says it will not call off the marches while he remains in his post.
Why it matters
The standoff puts the independence of India's election machinery at the centre of national politics. The Election Commission oversees the conduct of polls in the world's largest democracy, and a sustained campaign demanding the removal of its chief is an unusual challenge to an institution that normally operates outside day-to-day political combat.
The arrests also widen the confrontation between the opposition and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with both sides framing the day's events as a victory.
Former chief ministers among those held
Among those detained on Saturday while trying to join the protest were former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, bdnews24.com reports. All three were released later.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and Neha Borak of the All India Students' Association were taken into custody earlier in the day. Dipke had not been released as of the outlet's report.
Organisations behind the protest described the detentions as brutal treatment of peaceful demonstrators.
With Dipke still held, CJP leader Ajinkya Shinde has taken charge of the movement. He said the long marches toward Jantar Mantar would continue daily until Kumar is dismissed.
Students' Federation of India general secretary Srijan Bhattacharya called for the broadest possible unity among opposition groups. He said student protests would spread to different parts of the country from Sunday, that participants would demonstrate peacefully, and that wherever police barricades stopped them, those spots would themselves become Jantar Mantars.
Opposition alliance plans Monday memorandum
Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said the Congress-led INDIA bloc has called for a protest programme on Monday. Bloc leaders plan to submit a memorandum to Chief Justice Surya Kant and have sought a meeting with him at the Supreme Court that day, according to bdnews24.com.
Gandhi was in Chennai on Saturday for a student interaction. Writing on X, he said the authorities should arrest every leader and every young person, adding that the movement would not turn back. He said he had already obtained the information the protesters needed and told India's young people he was proud of them, urging them to keep up the protest.
Competing accounts of the crackdown
More than 1,000 people, including Dipke and other CJP leaders, were detained in Delhi on Saturday morning, bdnews24.com reports. Large numbers of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across the city to block demonstrators from reaching Jantar Mantar.
Figures for the total number held varied by outlet. NDTV put the number at more than 1,500, while the Indian Express reported at least 6,000 detentions in Delhi. The Daily Star Bangla reported that 3,300 people were arrested, including several Supreme Court lawyers.
The BJP described the wide police operation in Delhi and surrounding areas, which it said was aimed at thwarting the CJP's protest, as a victory for the people. Party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad criticised the opposition, focusing much of his remarks on Gandhi and the recent agitation by the Congress-led INDIA bloc. He said India is not a "banana republic" and that under Modi's leadership the country has never bowed its head and will not do so.
The CJP's campaign and the arrests have drawn attention beyond the capital, with student groups, opposition parties and legal figures now involved. The Daily Ittefaq reported that the INDIA bloc has called a large protest in Delhi on Monday under the slogan "Modi on the brink of fall."
What to watch next: whether the daily marches reach Jantar Mantar, how the courts respond to the memorandum from opposition leaders, and whether the student protests announced for Sunday spread as organisers predict.
