Opposition leaders head to Supreme Court by bus demanding Gyanesh Kumar's resignation

Several INDIA bloc leaders, including Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, left by bus for the Supreme Court on Monday. A large chain of party workers could be seen around the bus. The Congress wants to march to the Supreme Court demanding the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar.

Senior INDIA bloc leader Harish Rawat said Gyanesh Kumar should be made to resign immediately. He said the protest was to defend democracy and the right to vote, and to keep the voting right of ordinary people safe. "Democracy will survive only if the vote remains safe, and the Constitution and the country will survive only if democracy survives," Rawat said.

According to Congress leaders, this is a fight to save the country under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. Congress MP Mukul Wasnik said, "We will keep moving forward and stand firm on our demand." He said it was not merely the Opposition's demand but the demand of everyone across India who believes in the Constitution and democracy. Wasnik also said the fight would be fought to the end with full resolve.

Congress leader Ashok Gehlot said the entire country should know what is happening under the Home Ministry and how young people, women and journalists are being treated.

Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar from the list of protest sites. Congress leader Sachin Pilot sharply criticised this. He said the country guarantees the freedom to express one's views, and that protests, sit-ins and marches are democratic ways of getting a demand accepted.

Pilot added that if Jantar Mantar had now been removed as a protest site, where were people to go? He asked what place there was in the national capital where people could go and air their grievances.

On the INDIA bloc's protest, Pilot said the entire country had taken to the streets today. Countless Congress workers from across the country had gathered there under Rahul Gandhi's leadership, and all of them had one demand: that the Supreme Court hear them. Pilot said what the CEC had done was illegal and unconstitutional, and that he would have to resign from his post.