What happened at Jantar Mantar today
September 25, 2026: The All India Students’ Association (AISA) Delhi unit, along with civil-society activists, organised a protest and public meeting at Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation and arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Protesters raised slogans including “Arrest Gyanesh Kumar” and accused the Election Commission of irregularities in the handling of electoral rolls and the SIR exercise.
Among those present were AISA national president Neha Bora, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, activist Yogendra Yadav, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, RJD MP Manoj Jha, activist Anjali Bhardwaj and Nandita Narain, according to reports citing organisers.
Neha Bora detained
Delhi Police detained several protesters, including Neha Bora, during the demonstration. Reports also name Dipankar Bhattacharya, Yogendra Yadav and Anjali Bhardwaj among those detained. The Wire additionally reported the detention of journalist and YouTuber Mohammad Irfan, saying police allegedly threw away his microphone during the action.
There is an important qualification here: “detained” does not necessarily mean arrested or formally charged. The police explanation reported by PTI was that the organisers had not sought permission for the demonstration. A senior police officer was quoted as saying: “No application was submitted and no permission was obtained. They are being removed.”
Neha Bora pointed out sharply: ““Students protesting at Jantar Mantar brutally detained to protect CEC Gyanesh Kumar, who has sold out the electoral system and the nation.
Heavy police deployment and barricading
Jantar Mantar was heavily barricaded, with multiple layers of barricades and buses blocking entrances and a substantial police deployment around the protest area. The security arrangements came amid several planned demonstrations in Delhi over the Election Commission controversy.
The Indian Youth Congress was also scheduled to march from Raisina Road towards Jantar Mantar demanding Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, while police were separately deployed around the Election Commission’s office.
Why Gyanesh Kumar is facing protests
The immediate backdrop is the Indian Express investigation reporting that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections at least 14 times over a 10-month period concerning decisions involving voter additions, deletions, restoration of names, electoral-roll databases and other matters.
The controversy has become particularly intense because of the SIR, which involves a large-scale revision of electoral rolls.
The Election Commission has pushed back against the interpretation that the reported objections demonstrate a breakdown within the Commission. It says that different views and observations are part of institutional deliberations and maintains that the Commission’s decisions, including those concerning SIR, were ultimately taken unanimously.
That distinction is important for your news coverage: the objections are documented; what they ultimately signify institutionally remains contested.
The wider protest campaign
Today’s AISA demonstration also follows a separate escalation by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke gave Gyanesh Kumar a 48-hour resignation ultimatum on Thursday and threatened a nationwide agitation, including what he called “Jantar Mantar 2.0”, if the CEC does not step down. The organisation has demanded an independent investigation into SIR-related decisions, a freeze on the SIR exercise and restoration of earlier electoral rolls. These are CJP’s demands, not decisions or findings of a court.
So today’s protest is significant because several strands of the controversy are now converging in Delhi: the Indian Express investigation into internal EC objections, the legal challenge to Maharashtra’s SIR in the Bombay High Court, opposition demands concerning Gyanesh Kumar, and student/civil-society mobilisation at Jantar Mantar.
And, because apparently electoral-roll methodology wasn’t complicated enough already, Delhi now has barricades, detentions, competing demonstrations and a 48-hour resignation ultimatum all orbiting the same controversy.
JANPATH NEWS NETWORK (JNN)
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