On Saturday, 10 October, a woman at the anti-CEC demonstrations in New Delhi found herself aboard a police bus that pulled away while she was still inside, having stepped on to secure her phone and handbag. Protests drawing participants to streets in Mumbai, New Delhi, and several other cities called for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation, with those gathered citing what they described as irregularities in voter rolls and opposing the scrapping of the special intensive revision exercise.
Demonstrations organised by student unions, youth bodies, and opposition factions prompted authorities to deploy security personnel in large numbers and carry out detentions at multiple locations. Police in Delhi took a large number of demonstrators into custody, loading them onto buses and dispersing them to various points around the city, according to reports.
On 10 October, as protesters and Delhi Police officers clashed in New Delhi, officers began loading those who had been taken into custody onto waiting transport vehicles. Footage shared across social media platforms captured the moment a woman taken into custody at a protest was directed onto a bus, after which she made an attempt to leave. Video footage captured the individual pushing through the rear emergency exit of the vehicle while it was still in motion.
Ahead of leaving the area, she passed her phone and bag to a stranger standing nearby in the crowd of protesters, asking them to hold onto her belongings. Officers on board moved swiftly to restrain her and bring her back onto the vehicle. Footage captured the moment the police van pulled into congested traffic, with a person on the pavement reaching toward belongings left behind as the vehicle moved off.
Protesters carried out their planned rally toward Jantar Mantar against a backdrop of physical barriers along the route, restricted movement at entry points into the area, and a number of people taken into custody, with Delhi Police directing their personnel toward sealing off the assembly zones. Demands that Gyanesh Kumar step down from the post of Chief Election Commissioner drew mounting pressure from opposition figures, student bodies, and civic organisations, keeping the standoff with electoral authorities in motion.
Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka, and Saurav Das — three office-bearers of the Cochroach Janata Party — set a 24-hour window for Delhi Police to confirm a rescheduled date for a rally at Jantar Mantar, following the authorities' decision not to allow their planned October 10 gathering to go ahead. Upon landing in New Delhi, all three CJP leaders were taken into custody at the airport. Ranka, speaking at a press conference, stated that the party's mobilisation of citizens nationwide would continue until Gyanesh stepped down and the electoral process was made more transparent.
A procession toward the Supreme Court drew together opposition parties — among them Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Trinamool Congress, and the Samajwadi Party — alongside a cluster of student bodies, including the All India Students Association, whose national president Neha Bora joined the demonstration, as well as the Students Federation of India, the All India Students Federation, the National Students Union of India, and the Indian Youth Congress.
Protesters are said to have sought an audience with Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, intending to place before him their concerns about what they described as irregularities in electoral rolls and the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision exercise. A petition lodged against the Election Commission of India in the Supreme Court carries the name of Lok Sabha's Leader of Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, as its primary petitioner, with the INDIA Bloc understood to be behind the filing.
