The Congress-led INDIA bloc protest march was stopped on Monday by the Delhi Police at the Bhagwant Das Road near the Supreme Court.
Titled Chalo Dilli - March for Democracy, the protest saw Opposition MPs and leaders—accompanied by hundreds of supporters and activists—march towards the apex court to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over claims of vote theft during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Those leading the march included Leaders of Opposition (LoPs) in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, CPI's D Raja, CPI-M leader M.A. Baby, RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, besides NCP-SCP leader Supriya Sule, Shiv Sena-UBT leader Sanjay Raut, CPI-ML leader Dipankar Bhattacharya and IUML leader E.T. Mohammed Basheer.
Congress MPs Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Shashi Tharoor, Sachin Pilot and Mukul Wasnik and MAITC leader Sagarika Ghosh were also present, besides activists Yogendra Yadav and Nandita Narayan and AISA chief Neha Bora.
It was amid these protests that Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court over alleged electoral malpractices.
Filed by Advocate on Record S. Prasanna, the petition titled 'Rahul Gandhi v. Election Commission of India' was submitted just before the top court’s filing counter closed for the day. The finer details of the case are yet to be released.
Rahul Gandhi’s legal team also approached the SC seeking permission from the Registry to extend the time for filing the petition in person, a News18 report said.
The Supreme Court had earlier allowed a delegation of 10-15 INDIA bloc leaders to enter the filing counter, though reports said that the delegation would remain outside the high-security zone.
However, this came after Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Sunday declined the INDIA bloc's proposal for a meeting to discuss the vote theft claims.
He explained that the matter was already sub judice before the Supreme Court, due to which he urged them to approach the apex court through a formal petition, rather than to submit a memorandum through the administrative route.
Amid the protests, INDIA bloc leaders like Rahul Gandhi have also ramped up the rhetoric against Gyanesh Kumar.
"You have done a crime, and you are not the main criminal. You made a mistake and you are not the mind behind the mistake. We are after the people who are behind what you did," he declared, a day after the latest edition of his student outreach programme, Chhatron Ki Goonj, took place in Chennai.
Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, however, has alleged that the Congress and its allies were questioning the EC only when it was convenient for them to do so.
"The credibility of India’s democracy cannot be made hostage to the opposition’s political convenience," she wrote in an X post.
Referring to an open letter by 124 former IAS, IFS and allied service officers defending the EC's institutional integrity, she backed the SIR, saying free and fair polls needed accurate voter rolls, transparent procedures and strong institutions.
