CJP Leaders Detained After Entering Barricaded Jantar Mantar in Delhi

Delhi Police detained Cockroach Janta Party leaders Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka, Ajinkya Shinde, and several others on Tuesday morning after they entered the Jantar Mantar complex despite barricades and a heavy security presence. The group climbed over a locked gate carrying the national flag and raised slogans demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke posted video of the entry and wrote that the site had been breached. He said the resistance could not be denotified. The Home Ministry had removed Jantar Mantar from the list of designated protest sites a day earlier, citing law-and-order concerns. Authorities identified alternative locations for demonstrations.

Police took the detained individuals to a station. The action followed a larger set of detentions on October 10, when thousands of people, including opposition leaders and CJP organizers, were held across Delhi as the group attempted to stage a protest against the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. On that day, Dipke, Das, and Ranka were detained at the airport after landing from Mumbai.

The CJP has centered its campaign on allegations of irregularities in voter-list revisions and has called for Kumar’s resignation. Opposition parties in the INDIA bloc have filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a halt to the revision process and an audit of deletions. The court registry has flagged multiple procedural defects in that filing.

Tuesday’s brief entry and subsequent detention kept the protest visible even after the site’s formal status changed. Dipke and others framed the action as an assertion of the right to assemble at a traditional protest location. Police described the entry as a violation of the current restrictions.

The episode occurs against the backdrop of ongoing political conflict over the Election Commission’s work ahead of state and national elections. How authorities manage future attempts to use Jantar Mantar, and how courts handle related petitions, will shape the space available for public protest in the capital in the coming weeks.