Central Delhi woke up this Saturday to something it has not seen in a while. Phones with no signal in Connaught Place. Schoolchildren logging into online classes from home. And inside a circle drawn four kilometres wide around the Janpath-Kartavya Path crossing, mobile internet that went dark at 10 last night and will stay off till 10 tonight.
This is the shape of a protest the police refused to allow. The Cockroach Janata Party, a small outfit demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, had called its supporters to Jantar Mantar today for the CJP protest. Delhi Police said no. Then it switched off the internet.
The lockdown, in numbers
Start with the internet order, because it is the rarest instrument in this kit. Mobile internet on every technology, suspended within a 4-km radius of the Janpath-Kartavya Path crossing, from 10 pm on October 9 to 10 pm on October 10. The Home Ministry approved the request, and the Deputy Commissioner of Police’s office directed Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Jio and MTNL to comply, ABP Live reported. The legal cover is the Telecommunications Act, 2023, read with the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services Rules, 2024. The dead zone covers Connaught Place, Mandi House, Khan Market, Lodhi Road and Jangpura, according to ABP Live.
The metro got the same treatment. Police had asked the Delhi Metro to shut entry and exit gates at 57 stations from Friday night, including Rajiv Chowk, Kashmere Gate, Central Secretariat and New Delhi. At least 38 long-distance trains into Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin were cancelled on Friday, The Week reported. Two Namo Bharat stations, Sarai Kale Khan and New Ashok Nagar, closed from 9 pm Friday till 10 pm Saturday.
Then the Supreme Court pushed back. A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant said there could be no complete prohibition of metro and railway services, and that trains should run in a regulated manner instead. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta agreed to ask the authorities to reconsider, keeping proportionality in mind. The court also directed the government to publicise whatever it decides, in newspapers and on news websites, so commuters are not blindsided. That last direction is worth noting: the country’s top court does not usually have to order the government to tell the public what it is doing.
Why this CJP protest has Delhi on edge
The CJP’s demand is the same one the Opposition has been shouting for weeks: CEC Gyanesh Kumar must resign over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls. Permission for today’s Jantar Mantar gathering was denied by Joint Commissioner Nupur Prasad, who cited the party’s breach of conditions agreed during an earlier demonstration, PTI reported. On Friday evening, police patrolled parts of northeast Delhi with loudspeakers, telling residents to stay away from Jantar Mantar.
The ripple effects reached classrooms. Sardar Patel Vidyalaya moved Classes 6 to 12 online for Saturday, citing barricading and safety concerns, News9live reported. Other schools postponed parent-teacher meetings and cancelled sports practices. When schools go online over a protest, the protest is no longer just a protest. It is the city reorganising its Saturday around the possibility of trouble.
The fight moves to Rashtrapati Bhavan
On Friday, INDIA bloc MPs marched from Parliament House toward Vijay Chowk and were stopped by police. In the Central Hall, Rahul Gandhi told opposition MPs that the problem went deeper than the CEC and required, in his words, the termination of the government, the Economic Times reported. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the bloc would urge President Droupadi Murmu to probe what he called “vote chori” and scrap EVMs. A ten-member delegation including Kharge, Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee was expected to meet the President on Friday night to demand Kumar’s resignation, PTI reported.
The CJP, for its part, called the crackdown an Emergency. Spokesperson Saurav Das said Delhi had been turned into a fortress, while fellow spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka claimed on X that at least 10,000 people had been detained across India. That figure is the party’s own claim and has not been independently verified. The week’s confrontation follows Tuesday’s march, during which Rahul Gandhi was detained for around two hours before being released.
The crackdown caps a turbulent week for the government, which also saw the GST Council meet on Thursday and scrap arrest powers for tax officers. Different file, same pattern: New Delhi making big calls, and the rest of the country adjusting.
So here is the question Delhi wakes up to. Permission denied, phones dead across the city centre, the Supreme Court watching the proportionality of every barricade. If the point of the lockdown was to keep the protest off the streets, will it also keep the anger off them? By tonight we will have the answer. And whatever it is, with the courts and the President’s office now in the frame, this story is not ending at Jantar Mantar.