Saurabh Mukherjee
Opposition leaders, including Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and his Lok Sabha counterpart Rahul Gandhi, were detained by Delhi Police on Monday (August 11) after being stopped during a protest march against the ‘special intensive revision’ (SIR) of voter rolls in Bihar. They were released later in the afternoon.
The protest, led by MPs from the Congress, CPI(M), Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, DMK, RJD and other INDIA bloc allies, began from the Parliament complex and was intended to culminate at the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) headquarters, where the MPs planned to submit a memorandum.
The parliamentarians, wearing caps and carrying banners opposing the SIR, were stopped by police barricades near Transport Bhawan and staged a sit-in.
CPI(M) MPs A. A. Rahim, Amra Ram, John Brittas, K. Radhakrishnan, Su Venkatesan and V. Sivadasan joined the march. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, along with TMC MPs Mahua Moitra and Sushmita Dev, were seen climbing barricades to push forward.
“They are stopping votes, we are jumping barricades to save the people’s right to vote. I gave the ECI a list of 18,000 deleted votes and even filed an affidavit, but no action was taken,” Yadav told reporters.
Rahul Gandhi called the protest “a fight to protect democracy, the Constitution, and the principle of one person, one vote” and said the Opposition wanted a clean and transparent voter list.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress MP and media cell chief, accused the ECI of denying Opposition MPs the opportunity to collectively present their concerns.
He said the commission had asked for only 30 names “due to limitation of space”, which, he argued, went against the Opposition’s request for all MPs to be heard together.
Kharge questioned the government’s decision to prevent the peaceful march.
“If this was a march by VVIPs, there was no chance of any untoward incident. They could have made all 300 of us sit in a hall. How can we decide which alliance partners to exclude?” he said.
The standoff spilled into Parliament, where Kharge raised the matter, but was met with protests from treasury benches.
Leader of the House J. P. Nadda said the discussion should remain confined to the Manipur budget, a view upheld by the presiding officer.
Outside Parliament, Union Minister Piyush Goyal accused the Opposition of staging “drama” to avoid discussion in the House. He claimed the protest was not about the SIR but about allowing “illegal migrants” to vote, adding that the ECI had respected protocol by inviting a 30-member delegation in line with the conference room’s 35-seat capacity.
The Opposition, however, insisted that the government and the poll body were avoiding scrutiny over the alleged deletion of legitimate voters’ names in Bihar.
The protest, led by MPs from the Congress, CPI(M), Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, DMK, RJD and other INDIA bloc allies, began from the Parliament complex and was intended to culminate at the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) headquarters, where the MPs planned to submit a memorandum.
The parliamentarians, wearing caps and carrying banners opposing the SIR, were stopped by police barricades near Transport Bhawan and staged a sit-in.
CPI(M) MPs A. A. Rahim, Amra Ram, John Brittas, K. Radhakrishnan, Su Venkatesan and V. Sivadasan joined the march. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, along with TMC MPs Mahua Moitra and Sushmita Dev, were seen climbing barricades to push forward.
“They are stopping votes, we are jumping barricades to save the people’s right to vote. I gave the ECI a list of 18,000 deleted votes and even filed an affidavit, but no action was taken,” Yadav told reporters.
Rahul Gandhi called the protest “a fight to protect democracy, the Constitution, and the principle of one person, one vote” and said the Opposition wanted a clean and transparent voter list.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress MP and media cell chief, accused the ECI of denying Opposition MPs the opportunity to collectively present their concerns.
He said the commission had asked for only 30 names “due to limitation of space”, which, he argued, went against the Opposition’s request for all MPs to be heard together.
Kharge questioned the government’s decision to prevent the peaceful march.
“If this was a march by VVIPs, there was no chance of any untoward incident. They could have made all 300 of us sit in a hall. How can we decide which alliance partners to exclude?” he said.
The standoff spilled into Parliament, where Kharge raised the matter, but was met with protests from treasury benches.
Leader of the House J. P. Nadda said the discussion should remain confined to the Manipur budget, a view upheld by the presiding officer.
Outside Parliament, Union Minister Piyush Goyal accused the Opposition of staging “drama” to avoid discussion in the House. He claimed the protest was not about the SIR but about allowing “illegal migrants” to vote, adding that the ECI had respected protocol by inviting a 30-member delegation in line with the conference room’s 35-seat capacity.
The Opposition, however, insisted that the government and the poll body were avoiding scrutiny over the alleged deletion of legitimate voters’ names in Bihar.
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