Assam Congress protests across state over alleged police action against opposition MPs

The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee on October 8 staged protests across the state against the alleged police action against opposition MPs during demonstrations in New Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

In Guwahati, the protest at Rajiv Bhawan turned tense after Congress leaders and supporters attempted to break through police barricades to take out a march.

Several senior leaders, including former Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora and Assam Pradesh Mahila Congress chief Mira Borthakur Goswami, were detained by police after they crossed the barricades.

A Congress leader claimed that Bora, a former Rajya Sabha MP, sustained injuries during the scuffle with police and required stitches on his leg.

Bora, who led the protest at Rajiv Bhawan, said the Congress would continue its campaign against what the party alleged was the illegal deletion of voters' names at the direction of the Election Commission.

“It is our democratic right to protest, and the government cannot take it away,” the 70-year-old leader said while climbing over the barricade at the Rajiv Bhawan gate.

Several other Congress leaders and supporters, including women protesters, also climbed over the barricades, while others forced their way out in an attempt to march through the streets of Guwahati. Security personnel stopped the protesters and took them into preventive detention.

The protests in Assam were held in response to the detention of opposition MPs during demonstrations in New Delhi against Gyanesh Kumar. Opposition parties have alleged irregularities in the revision of electoral rolls and have demanded the CEC's resignation, while the Election Commission and the BJP have rejected the allegations.

Protests held across Assam

Similar Congress protests were held in several parts of Assam, including Dibrugarh, Diphu, Nagaon, Nalbari and Charaideo.

Protesters raised slogans against Kumar and the government and burnt effigies of the CEC and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others.

The Assam Congress protests came amid an intensifying political confrontation between the Opposition and the Election Commission over the electoral-roll revision exercise. Opposition MPs had been stopped and detained by Delhi Police during successive attempts to march towards the designated protest site in the national capital.

The Congress has maintained that its protests will continue until its concerns over the electoral rolls are addressed and its demand for the CEC's resignation is considered.