NEW DELHI: With unprecedented security arrangements and restrictions imposed across the national capital to prevent protesters from reaching Jantar Mantar to demonstrate against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, Left parties on Friday drew parallels with the 1975 Emergency, alleging that Delhi was being turned into a “military cantonment” to stifle dissent.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to allow protesters to demonstrate against what it described as the “collapse of electoral democracy”. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), meanwhile, approached the Supreme Court, challenging what it termed the “shutting down” of the national capital. The CPI (Marxist-Leninist)-Liberation also criticised the government, alleging that the elaborate security arrangements were aimed solely at protecting the CEC.
In his letter to Modi, CPI Rajya Sabha floor leader P Sandosh Kumar stated that people wanted to protest peacefully against what he described as the complete collapse of electoral democracy in the country. He added that Article 19 of the Constitution guaranteed citizens the freedom to assemble peacefully.
“It is a matter of shame that, instead of engaging with us, your government has consistently tried to silence us through detentions, arrests and house arrests. More than 47,000 security personnel have been deployed in Central Delhi alone. Our repeated attempts to reach Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, have been met only with barricades and police manhandling… This is a state of emergency,” his letter read.
Condemning the “extraordinary restrictions”, the Left parties said in a joint statement that the curbs were affecting ordinary people, who were facing harassment and considerable inconvenience.
“The denial of permission for the proposed demonstration, extensive barricading, imposition of prohibitory orders, closure of 57 Metro stations, cancellation of trains heading to Delhi, house arrests in various parts of the country, and the massive security blanket over the entire National Capital Region constitute an attack on the constitutional and fundamental rights of citizens to protest peacefully,” the parties said.
The statement was signed by the CPI, CPM, CPI (Marxist-Leninist)-Liberation, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and All India Forward Bloc.
All India Students’ Association (AISA) president Neha Bora on Friday urged people to continue the agitation even if its leaders were arrested. In a video message, Bora alleged that large-scale house arrests were taking place and that police personnel were searching for the protest organisers.
“Trains bound for Delhi are being stopped; 57 Metro stations had been closed ahead of the demonstration; paramilitary forces, the Army and large numbers of security personnel are being deployed. This is nothing but a state of open emergency in the country,” Bora said.
Drawing a parallel with the Quit India Movement of 1942, she added: “History is repeating itself. Just as the arrest of leaders could not stop the Quit India Movement in 1942, this movement will not stop either.”