New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor struck out at the Narendra Modi government on Saturday for what he called a “war-like deployment” in Delhi in anticipation of protests against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.
“Our GenZ deserves better than an undeclared Emer-GenZ,” Tharoor posted.
The government should provide answers, not lathis; expression, not repression.
The Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, who was in Berlin this week, said he returned to the national capital after 2 am and has rarely seen anything like what Delhi is witnessing now.
“Checkpoints every few hundred metres, concrete barriers and spike strips laid across our roads, a “war-like” deployment of 22,000 police and paramilitary across the city, 250 trains cancelled and 45 metro stations closed, and reports of young people being detained from their own homes and the streets in and around Delhi – all to prevent citizens from peacefully raising questions about the integrity of our elections,” he said on X.
“Most regressive (as well as repressive) is the suspension of the internet in the heart of the national capital,” the former Union minister said, claiming that freedom of movement stands completely shackled.
Jantar Mantar was designated precisely so that citizens could voice dissent in the centre of Delhi, and today even the roads leading to it have been declared out of bounds, Tharoor said, as reported by PTI.
“One is entitled to ask where this extraordinary manpower and urgency disappear when women in our capital need protection,” Tharoor said.
Those detained will have to be released, he noted, asking if the protesters simply return on Monday, will the authorities lock down the national capital all over again.
A government confident in the fairness of its elections would welcome questions about them, whereas one that turns its capital into a fortress to avoid them only deepens the very suspicions it seeks to suppress, he said.
The former diplomat said that barricades will do nothing to restore faith in the Election Commission, and the sooner it answers the public’s questions, the sooner calm will be restored.
“The strength of a democracy is measured by how it treats those who question its working, and by that measure, what we have seen today is utterly shameful and unconscionable,” Tharoor said.
Over 500 people have been detained so far by the Delhi Police for trying to reach Jantar Mantar for the proposed Cockroach Janta Party stir against the CEC.
Over 600 people with criminal records were also detained across all 15 districts of the national capital as part of preventive measures, the police said.
