CJP protest: As BJP hails crackdown, party leader’s daughter tweets about her detention
Among nearly 500 detained during Delhi’s anti-CEC protest was Yashaswinee Raje Singh, daughter of BJP leader Vikram Singh who had joined CJP's anti-Pradhan stir too
As hundreds of youths and several Opposition politicians headed for Jantar Mantar were detained by Delhi Police on Saturday (October 10), BJP leader Sambit Patra gloated it was “a victory of democracy over mobocracy”. Ironically, among the detainees was Yashaswinee Raje Singh, daughter of Patra’s party colleague, Vikram Singh.
Yashaswinee, a content creator, had grabbed eyeballs for openly supporting the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) during the Dharmendra Pradhan protests in July; she has now been detained for trying to join the CJP’s anti-CEC protests at Jantar Mantar. “Detained near Bangla Sahib for sitting in a park. currently being held in Keshav Puram police station (sic),” Yashaswinee wrote on X on Saturday. She later posted a video with the caption, “this was around 11-11:30 am. they were arbitrarily detaining everybody including people who were asleep on park benches (sic).”
Also read: Detained Dipke says Ajinkya Shinde will lead CJP protest, urges supporters to follow him
Her father Vikram Singh is a former MLA from Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur Sadar constituency and a prominent BJP leader in the state. However, Yashaswinee had said in an interview to Al Jazeera in July that she has not been to Fatehpur Sadar for several years, leads an independent life, and does not speak to her father about politics.
Two more “BJP daughters”—Archita Sachin Rahar, daughter of BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi, and Dibisa Mahanta, daughter of Assam Revenue Minister Keshab Mahanta—had also come out in support of the CJP and students in July.
Battleground Delhi
The national capital was turned into a fortress on Saturday as the police launched a sweeping crackdown, detaining CJP leader Abhijeet Dipke, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, and nearly 500 protesters, foiling their bid to reach Jantar Mantar, while the Opposition denounced the situation as “worse than the Emergency”.
Also read: ‘Undeclared Emergency’: Opposition leaders slam Modi govt over detentions in Delhi
Dipke and two other CJP leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were detained from inside the aircraft as soon as their flight from Mumbai landed in the national capital. Before the detention, police personnel told the CJP leaders that they did not have permission to hold their protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at Jantar Mantar.
Apart from CJP leaders, prominent Opposition leaders, including at least four former chief ministers—TMC’s Mamata Banerjee, CPM’s Pinarayi Vijayan and Manik Sarkar, and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal—were detained along with many of their party colleagues. Students leaders, social activists, journalists—all came in the Delhi Police’s wide detention net as more than 40,000 police personnel descended upon the national capital to thwart the CJP’s protest.
The partial lockdown-like situation was marked by the closure of 45 Metro stations, traffic diversions and heavy barricading along 30 road stretches in the areas around Jantar Mantar. The protesters are seeking CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.