Most protests begin at the venue. This one began on a runway. Before a single banner went up at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, the Cockroach Janta Party’s founder had been taken off a plane, a senior Opposition leader had been held outside her own front door, and the party’s organisers were insisting the protest was going ahead anyway.

Taken off the plane

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, along with co-convenors Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, was detained as soon as their flight landed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. Police personnel boarded the aircraft and escorted the three of them off. Dipke had flown in from Mumbai and was calling the day’s event “Jantar Mantar 2.0”.

In the scramble of cameras and officials that followed, Dipke was accidentally struck in the face by a microphone as he was led away. Just before he was detained, he had put out a video saying he would not bow down.

Where are they now?

Afterwards, the CJP said on X that the three leaders had been taken to an undisclosed location and were being denied access to their lawyers. Reports suggest Dipke was being taken to Gurugram, Das to Delhi and Ranka to Dwarka. Delhi Police has not, in anything we have seen, confirmed those locations or released a detailed statement. Dipke’s father, Bhagwan Dipke, has publicly questioned the Centre’s action against his son.

Mamata Banerjee held outside her residence

The other major development of the day involved Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. Delhi Police and CRPF personnel detained her, along with five others, from outside her residence in the capital. Student leader Neha Bora, president of the AISA, was reportedly detained as well.

We have not yet seen the police’s official reason for holding Banerjee, nor a statement from her. We will add both as soon as they are available.

“The protest will continue”

The CJP has called the detentions authoritarian and says its campaign will go on nationwide, with or without its leaders. Organisation-in-charge Ajinkya Shinde has been named to lead the demonstration at Jantar Mantar.

Delhi Police had denied permission for the event, citing security concerns and procedural requirements, and put barricades and heavy security around the site. Earlier in the day, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was detained from his Gurugram home, and around 150 protesters had been picked up in the New Delhi area by the time of that report.

Two days earlier, on Thursday, Dipke had alleged that activists and supporters were being taken into preventive custody ahead of the protest, calling it an attempt to stifle democratic opposition. Those claims are his, and we have not independently verified them.

What the BJP says

The BJP has dismissed this second round of the CJP agitation as a “flop show”. We have not independently verified the turnout at Jantar Mantar, and attendance claims from either side should be treated as claims until the police or the organisers give figures.

How we got here

The CJP rose to prominence this year during the nationwide protests over the NEET paper leak, which led to the Supreme Court quashing FIRs against student protesters. This week’s agitation has a different target: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Opposition alleges irregularities in the revision and wants Kumar to resign, while the Election Commission and its backers say the exercise is lawful. Earlier this week, 42 former judges signed an open letter defending the Commission.

What happens next

Everything now turns on a few questions: whether Dipke, Das, Ranka and Banerjee are released, whether the protest at Jantar Mantar goes ahead under Shinde, and how Delhi Police and the Opposition respond.