www.thestatesman.com | FOLLOW US: India’s National Newspaper since 1818 | @TheStatesmanLtd Pages 16 | ` 5.00 8th Day @thestatesmanltd | KOLKATA People’s Parliament, Always in Session thestatesman1875 | NEW DELHI | MUMBAI | BHUBANESWAR Evolve From steel to sweets | LUCKNOW | SILIGURI | 11 October 2026 S P O RT S Why Captain Smit wins hearts Another run fest looms as India face WI in Indore Page 16 Hundreds detained in crackdown, National Capital turned into fortress PARWINDER SANDHU SFI, CJP announce daily marches to Jantar Mantar, nationwide protests: New Delhi, 10 October A planned demonstration against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls triggered widespread detentions, traffic restrictions and a massive security deployment across Delhi on Saturday, with several INDIA bloc leaders, Left organisations, students and activists taken into custody as they tried to reach Jantar Mantar. Former chief ministers Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, Pinarayi Vijayan and Manik Sarkar were among those detained at different locations. Others taken into custody included CPI-M general secretary M A Baby, veteran Left leader Brinda Karat, CPI-ML Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, activist Yogendra Yadav and lawyer New Delhi: The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and other student organisations on Saturday announced daily marches to Jantar Mantar and a nationwide expansion of student protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, demanding his removal over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. CJP leader Ajinkya Shinde said the organisations would organise marches to Jantar Mantar every day until Mr Kumar was removed from the post of Chief Election Commissioner. He also alleged that Delhi Police had subjected Abhijeet Dipke and other protesters to inhumane treatment during detention. Prashant Bhushan. The demonstration was called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) along with Left and student organisations to demand Mr Kumar’s resignation and the withdrawal of the SIR exercise. The protesters also raised concerns over changes relating to Form 6, used for voter registration, alleging that the electoral roll revision process threatened voting rights. The police action began before the proposed gathering, with the CJP alleging that its founder and convener Abhijeet Dipke, spokesperson Saurav Das and co-convenor Ashutosh Ranka were detained aboard their flight from Mumbai shortly after it landed in Delhi. In a video released by the CJP, Mr Dipke was heard telling police personnel entering the aircraft: “We are here to be arrested, come and arrest us.” Aishe Ghosh, national joint secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) , was detained near Gurudwara Bangla Sahib’s Gol Chakkar. The CJP alleged that police entered the gurdwara premises and detained volunteers who had taken shelter there. Mamata Banerjee was detained in the South Avenue area along with Trinamul leaders Derek O'Brien, Dola Sen and other party members. Mr Vijayan, who was also detained, accused the BJP-led NDA government of using police and paramilitary forces to restrict democratic dissent. The SFI alleged that police used force against demonstrators during two marches organised with the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and other Left organisations, leaving several protesters injured. Separately, the Supreme Court Bar Association sought the intervention of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant following reports that lawyers had been detained during a protest near the Supreme Court. EAM calls for UNSC reforms, says India and Africa cannot remain under-represented Ex-IAS, IFS officers defend SIR and ECI, question rigging charges NIKHIL VYAS STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE New Delhi, 10 October External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar has called for reforms to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), asserting that India and Africa cannot remain unrepresented or underrepresented in global decision-making. He said India worked resolutely during its G20 Presidency in 2023 to secure permanent membership for the African Union. The same logic, EAM said, now applies to the reform of the UNSC. “Even as our relationship deepens, we are confronted with an anachronistic global order that disregards the interests of both Africa and India. This is no accident; on the contrary, conscious efforts are made to delay reform and undermine change,” Mr Jaishankar said in his address on the India-Africa partnership at the Adwa Memorial Museum in Addis Ababa on Friday. “The current Council neither delivers effectively nor represents fairly. And the two shortcomings are clearly interconnected. This decade has seen the UN slide steadily into irrelevance, helpless in the face of major challenges,” the minister said. “Our objective is not merely to add more seats around an old table. It is to make global governance more democratic, more responsive and more representative. And, in doing so, make the UN itself more capable and more credible. Where Africa is concerned, it must be represented fairly in both categories of UNSC membership, in line with the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration,” the minister stated. During his address, Mr Jaishankar also noted that India is Africa’s fourth-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade nearing the USD 100 billion mark. New Delhi, 10 October One hundred and twenty-four former IAS, IFS and allied services’ officers on Saturday strongly defended the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while questioning charges of vote rigging without evidence. In an open letter to the citizens of India, they said: “A charge made at press conferences but never placed on oath can be neither tested nor answered. Suspicion, however loud, is not proof.” The former Civil Services officers said they had conducted or studied elections all through their lives. “We prepared the rolls, trained polling parties, sealed strong rooms and supervised counts. We belong to no party.” They said: “We write because one word, rigged, is now thrown at our elections without evidence, Manipur CM meets PM in Delhi, discusses state-related issues STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE New Delhi/Imphal, 10 October Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Saturday and discussed various issues concerning the state, officials said. After meeting the Prime Minister, Chief Minister Khemchand Singh in a post on his official X account, said: “It was a privilege to meet the Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji. His visionary leadership continues to inspire our commitment to building a peaceful, prosperous and Viksit Manipur as part of Viksit Bharat.” The Manipur Chief Minister separately held meetings with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, and Union Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in New Delhi and discussed various issues of the state. Mr Shah and other two Union Ministers told the Chief Minister that they would soon visit Manipur. Mr Shah on Thursday assured Mr Singh of the Centre’s full support in restoring peace and ensuring progress in the state, as well as in fulfilling the aspirations of its people. During their meeting, the Chief Minister apprised Mr Shah of the measures taken up by the state government for restoring peace and normalcy in the state. A senior official of Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in Imphal said that the Home Minister also appreciated the sustained efforts of the state government to bring peace and normalcy in Manipur. The Chief Minister told Mr Shah that the state government has succeeded in resuming the Imphal-Dimapur (Nagaland)-Guwahati bus service, which has brought much-needed relief to the common people. and every repetition wounds democratic trust that belongs to all of us.” They said booth capturing was so common at one stage that Parliament made it a crime in 1989. “When violence speaks, democracy falls silent. Today Bihar, once synonymous with booth capturing, held its 2025 election, without a single re-poll, a first in its history. Turnout was the highest since 1951 and women voted in record numbers.” “This did not happen because officials became saints. It happened because the system that ECI created trusts no one blindly,” they said. Candidates’ agents watched, machines were sealed with the agents’ signatures and guarded in strong rooms that the candidates could watch. “Rigging would need the silence of tens of thousands of officials from governments of every political colour and of the losing parties’ own agents. No such conspiracy has every been proved,” the former officers said. Under the same system, the ruling party lost elections in several states and in 2024, it lost its own majority. The winners raised no complaints. “A system cannot be honest when you win and rigged when you lose,” they said. The same logic applied to the ECI which was made multi-member, which was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Special Intensive Revision sanitises the voters list and weeds out ineligible voters, the former officers said. Three Commissioners weigh every question from different angles and that’s not something unforeseen, they said. “Bihar’s rolls had not been intensively revised since 2003. Officers found about 22 lakh dead electors, seven lakh duplicate entries, and lakhs more who had moved away for good. Every such name is an invitation to impersonation. An uncleaned roll does not protect the voter. It protects the fraudster,” the ex-officers said. The ex-officers said the SIR is not a weapon of exclusion. "The draft roll is provisional, and absence from it is not deletion. No name is removed without notice and a hearing. Two levels of appeal follow. Every party may post agents beside every Booth Level Officer. While the dead and the duplicated were removed, about 21.5 lakh new voters were added,” the former senior officer said. BJP labels INDIA bloc, CJP ‘anarchists’, alleges plot to destabilise India STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE New Delhi, 10 October The BJP on Saturday accused the Rahul Gandhi-led INDIA bloc and the CJP of attempting to destabilise the country, calling them “anarchist” groups and asserting that the protests were “driven by political motives and foreign forces.” The party also accused Mr Gandhi of “disrespecting constitutional institutions by using a meeting with President Droupadi Murmu to make false claims.”“It is highly unusual in this country for sources close to the President to explicitly state that the remarks made by the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) regarding the President are incorrect. Rahul Gandhi, your falsehoods have now been exposed even by sources close to the President,” BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said. BJP president Nitin Nabin alleged that a “dangerous anarchic battle” was being waged by the INDIA bloc and the CJP to disrupt the country’s peace, harmony and development. “Frustrated by being repeatedly rejected by the public in our democracy, the Opposition is now hatching a deep conspiracy to spread instability and anarchy in Bharat at the behest of foreign powers,” he said. He added that these groups were unable to accept the country’s progress and emergence as a strong, self-reliant nation despite global crises. “On one side, the INDIA bloc led by Rahul Gandhi, and on the other, groups like Arvind Kejriwal’s ally CJP, have joined hands and are engaged in a dangerous anarchic competition to disrupt the peace, harmony, and rapid development of the nation,” he told the media. Mr Prasad said the events of the preceding three days and Saturday had demonstrated that Indian democracy had defeated attempts to promote anarchy, citing the BJP’s electoral performance in Assam, West Bengal and Puducherry. Wangchuk warns of fast if detained leaders not freed STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE New Delhi, 10 October Ladakhi climate activist Sonam Wangchuk on Saturday warned that he may resort to a hunger strike or undertake a foot march if political leaders and protesters detained by Delhi Police during an anti-Election Commission demonstration are not released by Sunday. In a video message shared on social media, Mr Wangchuk expressed concern over the detention of several leaders who had attempted to march towards Jantar Mantar to protest against alleged irregularities in the functioning of the Election Commission. Describing the developments as deeply concerning, Mr Wangchuk said he had not anticipated such a situation when he appealed for unity and peace ahead of the protest. “Yesterday when I posted a message appealing for unity and peace in today's protest, I had never imagined that the biggest democracy in the world would be under an undeclared EMERGENCY,” he wrote. Mr Wangchuk, who had extended support to the agitation against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar but could not attend the demonstration in person, said he had expected the participating leaders to spearhead the movement. “I was happy there were so many leaders to lead the movement, but I now learn that they have all been arrested,” he said, expressing hope that they would be released soon. The activist warned that he would be compelled to consider an “Anshan Fast or Padyatra March” if the detained leaders were not freed by Sunday. UP CM Yogi accepts Akhilesh’s challenge to contest from Ayodhya, asks him to follow suit STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE Balrampur, 10 October Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has accepted Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav’s challenge to contest the coming assembly polls from Ayodhya. “I invite you to file your nomination from Ayodhya, and I will too. Let’s try our luck! It should be decided; why fight against others? The fight should be face to face,” the CM said here on Saturday. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath made these comments after the inauguration and foundation-stone laying ceremonies for 78 development projects worth over Rs 803 crore in Balrampur district. He said: “They ask me to contest the elections from Ayodhya. Ayodhya is our holy place. I go there so that there is no laxity in Ayodhya's development, and no stain is brought to Uttar Pradesh's identity.” “In Ayodhya, you used to provide electricity for 3-4 hours. The Ayodhya you turned into a heap of filth is today an example of Ram Rajya, reminding us of the Treta Yuga,” he alleged. Mr Yogi said that the previous governments of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party had kept Balrampur district backward. Taking a dig at the SP’ s PDA (Pichhra, Dalit, Alpsankhayak) strategy, he said the party changes the meaning of PDA from time to time. Nowadays, PDA means Pichhda Drowning Authority, he said. Attacking Akhilesh Yadav politically, he said that in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, the SP had sent an uncle, Ram Gopal Yadav, and a rich man. If the SP talked about castes, then why had it not given tickets to any Brahmin, Kshatriya, backward, Dalit or Vaishya, or to anyone from other exploited and deprived communities? On Thursday, Akhilesh Yadav had challenged CM Yogi to contest from Ayodhya, claiming that people were annoyed with the BJP after the offering theft at the Ram Temple and the illegal demolition of a building in the name of development.