Indore police add a 31st condition as Rahul Gandhi’s student rally opens

Rahul Gandhi's fifth Chhatron Ki Goonj meeting is being held in Indore on 19 September under 31 police conditions, one of them added on the eve of the event. The new line asks coaching centres and hostels to sign that students who attend do so at their own risk and that the institutes will answer for their safety. Congress publicity chief Pawan Khera published a copy of the form on Friday night and called it a threat dressed as paperwork.

A hostel owner in Bhawarkuan, the neighbourhood that saw Gen-Z protests earlier this year, told The Hindu that two officers arrived with a single sheet and collected signatures from hostels and coaching shops. He was told to send students back on time and to keep a list of anyone who went to the rally. Khera also objected to a police note that cited the Verma Commission report on Rajiv Gandhi's assassination while setting security rules for the son.

A stadium refused, a park lawn rented

Organisers wanted Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which holds about 25,000. Indore Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava said a High Court order limits the ground to sport and state government events. The date then slipped from 12 September to 19 September. Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Jitu Patwari leased 12,000 square metres in front of Regional Park from the Indore Development Authority for 17 to 19 September at Rs 10.08 lakh. Local officers later added about Rs 4 lakh because the party had used the plot before the lease dates. Congress paid. The site has been named Bharat Jodo Maidan.

Patwari said more than 1.5 lakh students registered and that 15,000 to 20,000 are expected on the grass, with overflow screens nearby. Police told the party to put up at least 1,500 volunteers, 500 of them women, and treated crowd control as a shared job. The other 30 conditions cover the usual list: barricades, medical tents, banned items, loudspeaker hours.

What the tour is for

Chhatron Ki Goonj, "echo of the students," has already stopped in Kota, Dehradun, Prayagraj and Pune. Pune, on 22 August, was reserved for women students. Gandhi has used the stops to talk about question-paper leaks, the price of private coaching, delayed government recruitment and joblessness. On 10 September he asked students to send him messages about what the system is blocking. Indore is a BJP city and a coaching market. That is why Congress wanted it and why the permission fight has been so loud.

BJP leaders say the police are applying rules, not politics. Congress says every previous edition in a BJP-run city met friction and that Indore is the sharpest case. The signed hostel forms will not be tested unless someone is hurt. They will sit in a file as evidence of how a student meeting is now policed in a state capital.

Gandhi's own note on X said he was coming to listen. The practical test on Saturday is whether the students who signed up can reach the park without their landlords deciding the risk is no longer worth a signature.