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Police detained Congress cadres who had entered Akashvani Bhavan, as prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) were in force in the area following the INDIA bloc march to the EC office on Tuesday.
A police official ordered the Indian Youth Congress and NSUI workers gathered outside Akashvani Bhavan to vacate the area, announcing that any assembly of people there was illegal. The official warned that those who did not cooperate with the police would be detained. LoP in the Lok Sabha targeted the EC and the police questioning them for not allowing Congress and opposition representatives to meet officials of the commission "More than 300 Opposition MPs marched from Parliament to the Election Commission today to meet the Election Commissioners. We represent crores of Indians. - Why aren''t the Election Commissioners meeting us? - Why is the police stopping and threatening us?," he said The detained Congress workers were brought out of the premises by the police in a bus. Tensions reached a boiling point outside the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters as Congress workers and INDIA bloc supporters attempted to force their way into Nirvachan Sadan. The attempt to breach the poll body''s gates triggered sharp scuffles with security personnel, even as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi, and other senior parliamentarians staged a sit-in demonstration inside the nearby Akashvani complex, barely 100 metres away. Hitting out at the heavy-handed police deployment blocking the opposition leadership from handing over a formal memorandum, Congress leader Pawan Khera said the government was gripped by fear. "The Election Commission is right next door, but they are not allowing the country''s Leader of the Opposition to go; he has been stopped. So you can see, Rahul Gandhi ji, Priyanka Gandhi ji, and all of us are sitting here on a dharna inside Akashvani. The Election Commission is hardly 100 meters from here," Khera told reporters. Sharpening his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Khera added, "The Leader of the Opposition wants to go there and submit his memorandum, but he is being stopped, and everyone is being stopped very ruthlessly. This is the condition of this country''s democracy in the national capital. We understand that Narendra Modi is scared, and he should be; given the kind of misdeeds they have committed, they should be afraid—fear is justified." CPI (M) MPs, including John Brittas and V Sivadasan, were also detained. On detention, CPI MP P Sandosh Kumar said, "We were restrained from moving forward from the very beginning. There was a huge deployment of security personnel, CRPF, RAF, and other forces. We tried our level best to move forward. We will intensify the movement. Detention is not the solution; only resignation is. We are all working unitedly, and there is no separate strategy. Even BJD joined us today beyond the limits of the INDIA alliance." Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were stopped from entering the Election Commission office complex, following which INDIA bloc MPs staged a sit-in outside the EC office after marching from Parliament to Nirvachan Sadan, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. This comes as the opposition INDIA bloc on Tuesday hit the streets of the national capital as their protest march towards the Election Commission, raising slogans demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar (ANI)
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