Nearly nine hours after Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi led a demonstration from Parliament to the Election Commission and began a sit-in near the poll body’s office to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the Delhi Police cracked down and detained him and other leaders around 8 pm on Tuesday. 

Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, were detained by the police and bundled into a bus. Visuals showed Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi being dragged away by police personnel as Congress workers tried to stop them. The siblings were taken to Kingsway Camp Police Station in north Delhi and released around 10 pm.

The sit-in on the premises of the Akashwani Bhawan was part of the protest organised by the INDIA Bloc over the alleged “unilateral” decisions taken by Kumar and “irregularities” in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls, and saw leaders and party workers turning out in large numbers.

This was not the first time the Gandhi siblings were detained on Tuesday. Around noon, they were briefly made to board a police bus and were seen stepping out some time later.