- The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has called a "Lehra Do Tiranga" gathering at Central Park, Connaught Place, at 5 pm on Friday, October 16
- NDMC has shut the park for two days, a Section 163 BNSS order is in force, and tens of thousands of security personnel are on duty
- CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka are in five-day judicial custody over an alleged Jantar Mantar trespass
- The Delhi High Court declined to bar the protest, while police told it they would regulate the event
- Police may allow a small group to carry the flag and sing the anthem. CJP wants an open gathering
Connaught Place is behind barricades today. The market that normally fills with shoppers in the festive weeks now has paramilitary companies posted at Rajiv Chowk, Palika Bazaar and the metro exits, and Central Park, its green centrepiece, has a closure notice on the gate.
The reason is a flag march that hasn't started yet.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke asked supporters on Wednesday to bring the tricolour to Central Park on Friday evening. The call came after two of his closest colleagues were sent to Tihar.
Das and Ranka were first apprehended on October 13 at Jantar Mantar, which has been denotified as a protest site. A special executive magistrate recorded that they raised slogans there, and that preventive action under Sections 126 and 170 of the BNSS had already begun on October 11, after the two and Dipke were stopped at the airport on October 10 over an unapproved protest plan. With no surety produced, the magistrate remanded them for five days. The next hearing is on October 19. A third member, Ajinkya Shinde, walked out on a personal bond.
The protest also sits inside a bigger fight. Opposition parties, led by Rahul Gandhi, are challenging the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, and the Supreme Court issued notices to the Commission on Thursday. Student groups and CJP want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign. AAP has said it will support Friday's call, and NSUI workers were reported detained in Delhi early in the morning.
Nobody from the Union government has made a detailed public case. The argument has come through Delhi Police, NDMC and the courts.
Police say the park is a "significant and sensitive" public space, and that NDMC asked in writing for it to be protected. Trade and market associations have also asked for protection of their shops from what they call unlawful gatherings, a worry that peaks in festival season. Palika Bazar vendors went to the High Court with a similar plea, citing their livelihood.
On the flag itself, officers have been careful. Rules on carrying the tricolour and singing the anthem must be followed, they said, with proper respect and decorum. The department says it may arrange a place for a select group to do exactly that. Reports put the number at eleven. Everyone else has been asked to stay away.
Behind that is the memory of July 20, when the march toward Parliament turned ugly. Police said protesters pelted stones and hurt personnel. CJP said police beat peaceful students. Both accounts remain contested, and officers clearly don't want a repeat in the middle of the city.
Delhi Police also told the High Court they would take every possible step to restrain the agitation. The court did not stop the protest.
Dipke has framed the whole thing as a question of absurdity. He has asked what kind of state jails people for waving its own flag, and said a country where raising the tricolour becomes a crime is a country under a dictator. He says he is ready to be detained, and told reporters he expected police might pick him up overnight or in the morning.
The CJP also points at the scale of the response. Over 30,000 personnel, a shuttered park and a two-day traffic advisory covering 21 roads, all for a flag-waving gathering, is how supporters read it. Dipke asked why the Prime Minister would shut down Delhi to protect one man, meaning the election chief.
Then there's the legal complaint. Das and Ranka, the party says, are being held on a technicality at a site the government itself stripped of protest status. Separately, the Supreme Court has issued notice to the Centre on a plea over that denotification.
Traders have not been uniformly on the police side either. Some trader bodies wrote to the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and Gandhi, worried about the restrictions on movement around the market.
The CJP began on May 16 as an online joke, a satirical party for the "lazy and unemployed", and grew into the force behind this summer's youth protests over exam leaks. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on July 25. Analysts have noted a gap between its social media following and the crowds it pulls in person. Friday tests which of those numbers matters.
Traffic restrictions start at 3 pm and the march is set for 5 pm. Central Park stays shut through Saturday. Das and Ranka return to court on Monday, October 19.
