New Delhi, Oct 14 Opposition leaders on Wednesday rallied behind the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), condemning the arrest and jailing of its co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, as Rahul Gandhi and CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke stressed that they are fighting for the same cause.
Das and Ranka were arrested and lodged in Tihar Jail for allegedly violating their peace bonds and trespassing into Jantar Mantar on Tuesday after it had been denotified as a protest area. The CJP members, holding the tricolour, had raised slogans against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar before they were taken away by police personnel.
Opposition leaders defended the CJP members, saying they were well within their rights to protest and asked since when holding a tricolour is a crime. Dipke called on “patriots” to gather on Friday at Central Park in Delhi’s business hub Connaught Place with the national flag.
The arrests drew condemnation from leaders of the INDIA bloc parties, as well as the DMK and AAP which have distanced themselves from the opposition alliance.
While the Congress and the CJP have been holding parallel protests so far on the SIR issue, Gandhi spoke out strongly against the arrests on Wednesday, saying waving the tricolour at Jantar Mantar in a peaceful protest is not a crime.
“Jailing youth for it is an act of cowardice. Students. Youth. Journalists. The INDIA bloc. Different banners, one cause. All protests are one: citizens demanding their constitutional rights,” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said.
“Jantar Mantar belongs to the people of India. We will reclaim it,” Gandhi added.
Quoting his post, Dipke replied, “Thank you, LoP Rahul Gandhi sir, for speaking out against the illegal arrest of Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das”.
Talking to the media in Nagpur, Dipke said the CJP is not against the INDIA bloc. “All protests are fighting for the same cause… Gyanesh Kumar is rigging elections and helping Narendra Modi stay in power. We are all fighting against that,” Dipke said.
“CJP is an independent pressure group and will always remain that, but it does not mean we are against the INDIA bloc. INDIA bloc’s movement and ours are for the same cause,” he said.
Dipke said the two CJP members have been jailed “only for unfurling the tricolour”.
“I urge all patriots who love the tricolour to come to Central Park, Connaught Place at 5 pm on October 16 with the national flag. We will show that waving a tiranga is not a crime,” he said on X.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee also condemned the arrests, saying generations had fought for democratic rights and people must unite to protect democracy.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee also condemned the arrests, saying generations had fought for democratic rights and people must unite to protect democracy.
“I strongly condemn the arrest of Ashutosh and Saurav of the CJP. These moments are about us all, pledging and standing up to fight unitedly to protect our great democracy,” she said in a post on X, assuring young people that “your Didi is with you – today and forever”.
TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee criticised the arrests, describing the situation as “BJP’s new Pakistanified Bharat”, while party colleague Derek O’Brien also condemned the action.
Former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal questioned whether waving the national flag could be treated as a crime.
“Is waving our own flag in our own country a crime? This is absolutely ridiculous,” the AAP chief said in a post on X.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray asked when holding the national flag by young Indians had become a crime, saying the fight between the current regime and “patriotic young Indians” would continue until democracy was reclaimed.
CPI(M) leader and former Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the right to protest should not be confined to a designated site.
“The flag belongs to the people, not those in power,” he said, calling for unity to reclaim Jantar Mantar and demanding that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign and face prosecution.
CPI(M) also condemned the arrests in a post on X and demanded their immediate release, asking whether defending the right to vote had become a crime under the government.
CPI general secretary D Raja described the arrests as undemocratic and demanded the immediate release of the two leaders, asking in a post on X, “Since when did protesting against an undemocratic order become a crime?”
CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said Das and Ranka had entered Jantar Mantar in a symbolic protest against the Union Home Ministry’s decision to de-notify it as a designated protest site.
“Jantar Mantar belongs to the people and the whole world knows it as Delhi’s most common protest site,” he said in a statement, alleging that the government was afraid of protests and disdainful of the Constitution.
Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Jha questioned the charges against the activists.
“What is the charge? That he made it to Jantar Mantar? This is an unbelievable government, honestly. It is deeply unfortunate,” he told PTI, asserting that the right to protest belonged to the people.
DMK chief M K Stalin expressed solidarity with Das and Ranka, saying his party was ready to provide them with all necessary legal representation and support.
NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule also condemned the arrests.
Das and Ranka were produced before a special executive magistrate on Wednesday and remanded in judicial custody for five days before being lodged in Tihar Jail, the Delhi Police said. Their associate Ajinkya Shinde was bound down to maintain peace and good behaviour for six months and released on a personal bond and a surety of Rs 5,000.
K. T. Rama Rao, working president of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which is not a part of the INDIA bloc, also condemned the arrests and said five-day judicial custody for waving Indian flags at Jantar Mantar is a “new level of Emergency”.
“If there is one group of people really fighting for this country’s future, it is the youth, the Gen Z of this nation. To imprison them because they are trying to clean up the system reeks of insecurity,” he said.
He stressed that it should not be forgotten that the country attained its freedom through protests and movements like these.
Earlier, in a post on X on Tuesday, Dipke had cautioned against attempts to create divisions between the CJP and opposition parties, referring to the different treatment of their protests.
(PTI News)
