No permission needed for 10 Oct protest: CJP, Left students’ unions  

• Protest will no longer be confined to resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar 

• Demands now include repeal of the controversial 2023 Appointments Act, electoral reforms 

• Farmers and civil society organisations invited to join protest ‘beginning’ on 10 October

While Delhi Police has been informed about the protest planned at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, 10 October, protesters will not wait for “permission”, representatives of several Left student unions and the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) have announced.

Representatives of the CPI(ML)-affiliated All India Students’ Association (AISA), the CPI(M)-affiliated Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the CPI-affiliated All India Students’ Federation (AISF) and CJP co-convenor Saurav Das said the protest would no longer be confined to demanding the resignation of chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. The agitation, they said, would continue until the 2023 law governing the appointment of election commissioners is repealed and steps are taken to reform and restructure the electoral system.

Delhi Police has been formally informed about the planned protest, along with the required undertakings. The organisers rejected the argument that protesters must seek “permission”, maintaining that they were required to inform the police so that law-and-order and traffic arrangements could be made.

Insisting that peaceful protest is a constitutional right, they said young people across the political spectrum were being invited to join the agitation over voting rights and the Election Commission of India (ECI). They stressed that the demonstrations would not be a one-day affair but would continue.

Delhi Police, meanwhile, has maintained that, under guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court of India, permission must be sought at least 10 days in advance. Police have also said Jantar Mantar can accommodate a gathering of only 1,000 people. Demonstrations involving up to 50,000 people would have to be held at Ramlila Maidan with permission, while larger rallies would need to be organised at Burari, on the outskirts of Delhi.

The student representatives and CJP argued that Jantar Mantar is a designated protest site and that the planned demonstrations would be peaceful. “If Delhi Police denies protesters access to the site, the whole of Delhi will become Jantar Mantar,” Das said.

He said young people from across the country were expected to travel to Delhi and invoked citizens’ constitutional right to assemble and protest peacefully. Everyone, including members of the INDIA bloc and the BJP, was welcome to join the movement, he added.

Addressing the media at the Press Club of India, AISA national president Neha Bora accused Delhi Police of targeting women protesters and engaging in gender-based violence. She alleged that young protesters were being brutally assaulted after detention in an attempt to intimidate them into staying away from future demonstrations.

Bora said protesters could not be divided along party lines, arguing that solidarity among demonstrators often brought people together to help one another. The agitation against the CEC, SIR and alleged ‘vote chori’, she said, would not be allowed to fracture along political lines.

Warning that the campaign would be a long struggle, she called on citizens to come forward and fight shoulder to shoulder. Bora also said the protest would be far bigger than the ruling party anticipated, arguing that democracy would ultimately be sustained by the people if institutions failed. She said the movement could not depend solely on what happened in Parliament or the Supreme Court.

She cited the support extended by prominent civil society figures, including lawyers Shahrukh Alam, Kapil Sibal, Nithya Ramakrishnan and Vrinda Grover, and expressed hope that more people would join the protests in the coming weeks.

Das alleged that the ECI had deliberately failed to add young voters from Generation Z to the electoral rolls after the 2024 general election, thereby keeping new voters from exercising their franchise. He argued that the electoral system was so broken that young people would have to take the lead in fixing it.

Reiterating that reforming the ECI was an immediate priority, Das said the agitation would not end with Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation. The objective, he said, was to overhaul the system and prevent another chief election commissioner from undermining the electoral process.

Das also alleged that elements supporting the ruling party were planning to provoke violence during the protests. He warned of possible stone-pelting and other attempts to disrupt the demonstrations.

He subsequently posted on X and tagged Delhi Police in a video in which a man could allegedly be heard calling on “nationalist” youth to assemble in Delhi on 10 October. Das claimed that attempts were being made to engineer violence and said the police had a responsibility to prevent such elements from reaching Jantar Mantar.