'Undeclared Emergency', says Mamata as Rajnath accuses opposition of making youth pawns

Opposition leaders turned the detention of Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke into a rallying cry on Friday evening, accusing the Centre of treating the national flag as a threat. The BJP answered from Lucknow, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said Congress and its allies were using young people to fuel confrontation.

Dipke was detained shortly before 5 pm on his way to Connaught Place, where he had asked people to gather and wave the Tricolour in protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

“Let that sink in”

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee led the attack. “Abhijeet Dipke has been detained for holding the Indian National Flag. Let that sink in,” she wrote on X, calling it “nothing short of an undeclared Emergency”. A government that fears dissent, she said, “is now trying to intimidate an entire generation into silence”. She ended with a message to the protesters: “Your Didi stands firmly with you.”

AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal wrote: “This is nothing but outright dictatorship.” He asked: “Is it a crime to hoist the tricolor?” Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav cast the day as a contest of colours. “Today is the day of ‘Ekaranga’ versus ‘Tiranga’,” he wrote.

Anish Gawande, spokesperson of the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), said Dipke had been “abducted by the Delhi Police” and that “peaceful protest is a crime in #NewIndia”.

AAP held a Tiranga march of its own near its headquarters on Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla Lane, with workers chanting “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. “Protest will continue until Gyanesh Kumar resigns and SIR is revoked,” said AAP leader Gopal Rai.

Rajnath: “politics of anarchy”

At a press conference in Lucknow, Rajnath Singh said the opposition was trying to “use the energy of the youth to fuel political confrontation and spread anarchy”. He added: “The youth of the country are being made pawns in the politics of anarchy.” He accused Congress of seeking a regime change along the lines of Bangladesh, and said democracy does not permit disorder or attacks on constitutional institutions.

The opposition in Uttar Pradesh hit back within hours. “I fail to understand why the BJP is defending an individual,” said senior state Congress leader Aradhana Misra ‘Mona’. She said Kumar should have been made to resign and face impeachment, and accused him of having “snatched the voting rights of more than 13 crore citizens” through the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

Samajwadi Party MP Iqra Hasan said: “Look, it is the BJP that is plundering the nation and setting the country ablaze.” She too demanded Kumar’s resignation.

In West Bengal, BJP minister Dilip Ghosh accused the CJP of disrupting Navratri and Durga Puja celebrations with its protests.

The government’s line

Asked about the student protests at the ministry’s briefing on Friday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “We have institutions and agencies that are keeping an eye on it, and they are doing what they have to do.”

The exchange follows a week in which the BJP has accused the protest’s backers of taking their cue from Bangladesh, and opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, have said that carrying the Tricolour cannot be a crime. Dipke had asked supporters who could not reach Delhi to hold Tiranga marches in their own towns.