Stepping up the heat on CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Congress members, joined by other opposition parties and groups, on Friday staged protests across the country and attempted to march to the Election Commission office in various states, demanding his immediate removal and arrest, while police detained the protesters and used water cannons to stop them.The opposition also pressed for an independent inquiry into alleged irregularities in the electoral process, an immediate halt to the SIR exercise and a review of all the decisions taken by ECI during Kumar’s tenure.In an X post Friday evening, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said, “Gyanesh will go; it’s a matter of time. And then Congress will make it happen.” Terming Friday’s protest “just the beginning”, he said that “there will be a massive outpouring of defenders of democracy”.
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In Assam, state chief Gaurav Gogoi and several senior functionaries were detained as they attempted to cross the barricades placed outside the party’s state headquarters and proceed towards the chief electoral officer’s office.In Jammu and Bhubaneswar, several senior Congress functionaries and workers were detained as they took part in the party’s nationwide agitation against the CEC.In Lucknow, UP Congress workers clashed with police after they were prevented from marching towards the assembly. In Patna, water cannons were fired on Congress workers led by state party chief Rajesh Ram. In Chandigarh, too, demonstrations by Punjab Congress, led by state chief Amrinder Raja Warring, and Haryana Congress faced water cannons.In Lucknow, UP Congress workers clashed with police after they were prevented from marching towards the assembly. In Patna, water cannons were fired on Bihar Congress workers led by state party chief Rajesh Ram.
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