Jammu Deputy CM Invokes Emergency Over CEC Gyanesh Kumar

Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary on October 10 compared Delhi’s protest curbs to the Emergency and asked Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign. He spoke in Jammu hours after police took Cockroach Janta Party conveners off a Mumbai flight at the capital’s airport.

His chief minister, Omar Abdullah, had already been inside Rashtrapati Bhavan the previous evening. A Union territory that only recently got an elected cabinet back was taking a side in a fight over who stays on the voter list.

The Emergency Line Came From Jammu

Choudhary, a National Conference MLA from Nowshera, was answering questions on the sidelines of a function. Police had detained CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka as they landed, and had held YouTuber Dhruv Rathee at his home in Gurugram’s Sector 56.

He called the detentions wrong and said the right to protest was not a gift of the ruling party. The charge sheet against Kumar, he said, had not been written by the opposition.

This (detention of CJP leaders) is wrong and should not happen. It is their right. There are serious allegations against the CEC, and these allegations have not been made by any political party, but by two of his own colleagues. Therefore, there should be an investigation into the matter.

Surinder Choudhary, Deputy Chief Minister, Jammu and Kashmir, to reporters in Jammu

He then turned the BJP’s own Emergency talk back on Delhi. Metro gates had been ordered shut, long-distance trains had been cancelled at source, and liquor vends had been closed on October 9 and 10. “When you have brought the entire city of Delhi to a standstill and paralysed the capital, what does that signify?” he asked.

“If we want to keep democracy vibrant and strong and ensure transparency in the votes we cast, the CEC should resign on moral grounds,” he said. He also asked how long protesters would be tagged as Khalistanis or Pakistanis, and he said young women in the Delhi crowds were “the daughters of Mahatma Gandhi’s India and of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s India.”

That is not the language of a bystander. It is the language of a government that has to face an electorate it only just won back.

Omar Abdullah Took the File to the President

On October 9, Abdullah sat in a 10-member INDIA bloc delegation that met President Droupadi Murmu for more than 45 minutes. With him were Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby, CPI’s D. Raja, NCP (SP)’s Supriya Sule, Samajwadi Party’s Rajeev Rai, RJD’s Manoj Jha and VCK’s Thol. Thirumavalavan.

The memorandum asked for Kumar’s removal, a halt to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, restoration of 13.30 crore names the bloc says were struck off, a return to paper ballots, and repeal of legal immunity for election commissioners. Gandhi told reporters the President “didn’t deny or argue” and asked them to bring her proof of “vote chori.”

Choudhary, speaking a day later, called Murmu the custodian of the Constitution and said going to her was a democratic right. “If we want to save democracy, we must ensure the freedom and independence of our institutions,” he said.

Abdullah had already mocked talk of a Padma award for Kumar in late September, saying the Bharat Ratna would fit if the brief was delivering West Bengal to the BJP. He also said the evidence against the poll panel had not been produced by any party but had “emerged through a newspaper investigation.” The Jammu deputy’s Emergency line sits on that same file.

For a National Conference cabinet sworn in on 16 October 2024, after years without a sitting assembly, the voter list is not an abstract Delhi quarrel. It is the roll that will decide whether that cabinet still exists the next time the Commission calls an election.

Two Commissioners Objected 14 Times in 10 Months

Kumar’s trouble did not start on Jantar Mantar. Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi put 14 written objections on record over 10 months, four of them on a single day, against steps they said were taken without their knowledge. The objections cover new voter registration, deletions and restorations, appeals, and control of the roll software. Some were copied to Kumar. In one note Sandhu called an action “unauthorised and illegal.”

The Special Intensive Revision began in Bihar in June 2025 and ran across 30 States and Union Territories. A form that adults use to enrol, Form 6, started asking whether the applicant or their parents appeared on the last SIR roll. Joshi had warned that the form could not be changed that way without a rule amendment. Sandhu later wrote that the change “must be removed immediately.”

The Election Commission says the headline deletion number is the wrong frame. It has said 95.40 crore electors were scrutinised and that 13.39 crore were placed in the Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate category at the draft stage, after which voters had a month to file claims. Eligible people, it says, can still get back on the list. It has also said SIR decisions were unanimous.

HOW THE ELECTION COMMISSION CLASSIFIED 13.39 CRORE NAMES

Those four buckets add to about 13.1 crore. The rest of the 13.39 crore sits inside the same draft-stage ASDD pile. They are the Commission’s labels, not a published final cut, and they are not the same figure as the 13.30 crore restoration demand in the President’s memorandum.

WHERE EXPERTS DISAGREE

• The Commission: All SIR decisions were unanimous, internal notes are normal in a three-member body, and the 13.39 crore names are a draft classification, not a finished purge.
• Sandhu and Joshi: Key orders went out without them, Form 6 was altered against written advice, and access to the roll database was being pulled toward Delhi.
• The 2023 statute: Business should be done by unanimous decision on Commission business where possible, and by majority if the three differ; work allocation itself may be set only by a unanimous vote.

Joshi and Sandhu also wrote separately to the Cabinet Secretary after a change in IT oversight that, they said, was made without them. The three commissioners then held their first full meeting in four months on 9 September 2026. Choudhary’s demand for an inquiry is, in that sense, a request to air a paper trail that already exists inside Nirvachan Sadan.

Police Took CJP Conveners off a Delhi Flight

Delhi Police refused permission for the October 10 gathering at Jantar Mantar. Joint Commissioner Nupur Prasad said the notice came late and that CJP had broken conditions from a July protest. Prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita were in force. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Supreme Court that a previous permitted sit-in had run 17 days and that more than 200 police personnel had been injured on an earlier march.

The DMRC was told to close entry and exit at 57 Metro stations from 9 pm on October 9. Mail and express trains into New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin were cancelled at source. Mehta said a mobile internet curb covered about four kilometres around Rashtrapati Bhavan and Raisina Road.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana heard lawyers who said they were appearing for commuters, not for CJP. Kapil Sibal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, N. Hariharan, Vrinda Grover and Prashant Bhushan argued the curbs hit people who had no plan to protest. Justice Bagchi drew the line the order needed: “Reduction of frequency is regulation. Closure is prohibition.”

CJI Kant told Mehta the state could prevent disorder but “that does not mean you should use a hammer to kill a fly.” The bench recorded an assurance that Metro and rail would run in a regulated way, directed a traffic advisory, and did not decide whether Saturday’s protest itself should be allowed. Counsel had already placed the right to assemble peacefully and the right to move freely on the record.

THREE DAYS THAT PULLED JAMMU INTO THE FIGHT

1. October 8, 2026: INDIA bloc lawmakers try to march to Jantar Mantar and police detain 91 leaders and workers, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
2. October 9, 2026: The Supreme Court bars a complete Metro and train stoppage; the 10-member delegation meets the President; Delhi Police confirms the Jantar Mantar refusal.
3. October 10, 2026: Dipke, Das and Ranka are taken into custody inside the aircraft after a 9:30 am landing; Rathee is held in Gurugram; Tushar Gandhi is picked up in Mumbai on his way to August Kranti Maidan; Choudhary speaks in Jammu.

Dipke had posted that he would land at 9:30 am and march anyway. After the pickup he wrote that the shutdown was not strength.

Modi has accepted defeat even before our protest has begun.

The mass crackdown on protesters and the shutdown of Delhi are not signs of strength, but of a leader terrified of his own people.

— Abhijeet Dipke (@abhijeet_dipke) October 10, 2026

Citywide headcounts of Saturday’s detentions do not match across accounts, so they are not repeated here. Named custody is not in dispute: the three CJP conveners, legal head Ratna Singh, Rathee, several CPI(M) leaders including Pinarayi Vijayan, Brinda Karat and M.A. Baby, AAP’s Manish Sisodia in Chandigarh, and Gandhi’s great-grandson in Mumbai. Police also held more than 600 people with criminal records across 15 Delhi districts as a preventive sweep, a separate tally from the protest pickup.

Giving the country a month’s notice of Jantar Mantar 2.0 made the airport the first checkpoint. The conveners announced a date; the state used the date.

What the Cockroach Janta Party Still Wants

CJP is a young, satirical outfit that first drew a crowd at Jantar Mantar over the NEET paper leak, a protest that ended with Dharmendra Pradhan leaving the education ministry in July. Dipke then turned the same method on the Election Commission, with a 48-hour ultimatum in late September and a Gandhi Jayanti start in Mumbai.

Das told interviewers the October 10 rally was not a one-day show. Student groups including the All India Students’ Association, the All India Students’ Federation, the Students’ Federation of India and AAP’s student wing joined the call. Arvind Kejriwal said he would go with his family.

Even if Gyanesh Kumar resigns, we will not bow down.

Saurav Das, CJP co-convener

WHAT CJP SAYS MUST FOLLOW A RESIGNATION

• The roll: Freeze the SIR and restore the January 2025 electoral roll.
• The inquiry: Order an independent probe into alleged irregularities and start criminal proceedings against Kumar.
• The appointments: Repeal the 2023 law on election commissioners and put nominations on an independent selection process.
• The calendar: Halt upcoming elections until that process is in place.

Choudhary did not adopt that full list. He asked for an investigation and a resignation on moral grounds. That is still a sitting deputy chief minister endorsing the core demand of a group the police would not let reach the designated protest ground.

The appointment statute, Act 49 of 2023, came into force on 2 February 2024. It puts the Prime Minister, a Union minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the selection panel, and it is the same law the opposition wants torn up. All three current commissioners were named under it.

Choudhary Once Joined the BJP Over Delimitation

The man delivering the Emergency comparison from Jammu is not a lifelong National Conference loyalist. Choudhary contested Nowshera for the BSP, then the PDP, then joined the BJP in April 2022 as PDP general secretary, citing public “love and affection” for a delimitation that split Nowshera and Sunderbani. He quit the BJP for the National Conference in July 2023, accusing then J&K BJP president Ravinder Raina of family politics. In the 2024 assembly election he took 35,069 votes and beat Raina by 7,819. Omar made him deputy chief minister so Jammu would see a face in the cabinet; he was the party’s only MLA from the Hindu-majority Jammu belt.

That path does not cancel the institutional point. It sharpens it. A Jammu politician who once walked into the BJP over a map of constituencies is now telling that party it has frozen the capital to protect a chief election commissioner. His own children, he said, are unemployed, and he wanted that talked about too. The voter list is how those children, and everyone else’s, get counted.

Kumar has not resigned. CJP has not withdrawn. The President has asked for proof. The Commission still says the 13.39 crore names are a draft classification and that the roll can be mended through claims. Choudhary spoke in Jammu after the aircraft doors opened in Delhi, and he left the CEC with a moral demand his own chief minister had already carried to Raisina Hill.