The Indian capital Delhi is currently under an extraordinary security cordon, the likes of which has no precedent in the past.
The entire city is under the control of police and paramilitary forces. Citing fear of deterioration of law and order situation, the Delhi Police has rejected the request of Cockroach Janata Party to hold a protest rally against the Chief Election Commissioner at Jantar Mantar.
A security cordon has been created for several kilometers around Jantar Mantar. All entry points into the city have been blocked. On the instructions of the police, all metro services in Delhi have been closed from 9 pm last night until further notice. While most trains coming to and going from Delhi have been suspended from 4 am to 2 pm.
Students and youths coming to participate in the Jantar Mantar protest have been deboarded from trains and buses and detained in different states. The police are announcing at various places that people should not join the youth protest at Jantar Mantar on the 10th because, according to the police, it would be tantamount to violation of law.
According to media reports, more than 30,000 personnel of police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in the city to foil the protest of Cockroach Janata Party and students.
The center of dispute between the opposition parties and the government is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists. The opposition alleges that during this process, a large number of voters’ names have been removed from the lists and this could give electoral advantage to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
After a three-day march near Jantar Mantar, leaders of the opposition alliance ‘INDIA’ (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) met President Droupadi Murmu on the night of October 9 and expressed their reservations to her about the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists and the role of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, demanding his removal from office.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer and social activist Prashant Bhushan, who is active in the campaign against the Chief Election Commissioner, said in a news conference that “public voice cannot be suppressed on the strength of security forces. The extraordinary arrangements made to stop the protest show that the government is afraid of public reaction.”
