Rahul Gandhi’s stand-on-barricade moment came with a Led Zeppelin track - The Indian Express
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant came a-visiting Tuesday while the Congress-led INDIA opposition bloc protested against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Ok. So they weren’t actually there. But Congress MP Rahul Gandhi served up some Led Zeppelin spirit in an Instagram reel; the clip showed the Leader of the Opposition standing astride Delhi Police’s yellow metal barricades, hands on hips while a sea of protesters swarmed around.
At 6.45 pm – three hours after it was posted – the reel had been viewed over 2.7 million times.
And if you want to check out the full song (it’s a banger!) you can do so here:
But the day began with less hard rock and more political sloganeering; opposition MPs led by Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, as well as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and the Trinamool Congress’ Abhishek Banerjee, set off on a march from parliament to the EC office.
The purpose? To confront CEC Kumar over allegations of irregularities in the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision of state/UT voter rolls. The substance of these allegations – that the EC helps the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party win elections – have been made frequently by Gandhi and other opposition MPs, though there was little by way of public response.
However, last month The Indian Express published an investigation that said two of India’s three Election Commissioners – Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi – had repeatedly objected to decisions related to the voter re-verification exercise, including ‘illegal’ changes to Form 6 and the push to centralise control of ECINET, the software that manages voter rolls.
The Express’ investigative reports prompted a furious response from the opposition and democracy activists, including the Abhijeet Dipke-founded Cockroach Janata Party, all of whom are now demanding Gyanesh Kumar resign as the CEC and the voter lists be rolled back.
On Tuesday afternoon those protests led to tense showdowns between Delhi Police and the protesters, with dozens of the latter group herded away into police buses and detained.
Both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were also briefly detained.
She was sitting in a bus, parked outside Akashvani Bhavan – the headquarters of All India Radio – and Rahul was about to get in. Suddenly, they looked at each other and walked past the cops and into that compound. The move seemed off-script and the police were caught flat-footed.
This sort of off-the-cuff thinking seems to have become part of Rahul Gandhi’s personal gameplan in cornering the government during public protests. Remember the impromptu sit-in outside Prime Minister Modi’s home in July to protest police violence against NEET protesters?
In fact, till they walked into Akashvani Bhavan, most Congress leaders said they thought the protest was over – squashed by the authorities who seemed better prepared this time than last, when the CJP protested at Jantar Mantar over the NEET-UG exam paper leak.
“We don’t know what happened. This was not part of the plan,” one of them said.
Chandrashekar is a senior editor with over 17 years of experience in reporting, writing, editing, and curating digital news content. He has worked with leading media organisations, including NDTV and Hindustan Times, handling high-impact coverage across politics, international affairs, conflict, and public policy. Over the years, he has written and edited news reports, explainers, analyses, profiles and opinion pieces for diverse audiences, focusing on breaking news, political forces shaping India and the world, economic policy, and global security. He has also helped shape editorial guidelines and train junior writers and editors. His expertise includes headline writing, search and audience optimisation, content packaging, and developing editorial standards for fast-changing news environments. His approach to journalism is rooted in accuracy, context and the belief good analysis should help readers what happened and why it matters. ... Read More
