INDIAN opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister and fellow lawmaker, Priyanka Gandhi, as well as the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav were arrested from the site of a protest outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence on Tuesday, The Press Trust of India reported.
The opposition leader, also chief of the Indian National Congress party, demanded that PM Modi step down over the police crackdown against student protests demanding reforms in the education system. Modi must resign “for destroying the future of India’s youth”, the Congress Party leader said in a post on social media as he led a march with other MPs towards the premier’s residence in New Delhi.
According to The Press Trust of India, as police swooped down on the site, the opposition leader could be seen lying on the ground and resisting as security personnel attempted to pick him up. He was hurt in the process.
“The government doesn’t want to take any accountability, nor does it want to have a debate on it in parliament,” said Mr Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the lower house.
His comments came after police said 60 protesters were injured in clashes with security forces in the heart of New Delhi on Monday, marking the biggest street rally in the capital for about five years.
The Cockroach Janta Party movement vowed to press ahead with their campaign until the education minister resigns, a day after at least 180 people were injured in protests in New Delhi.
Thousands of protesters gathered in the heart of the Indian capital on Monday, demanding Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation and wider examination reforms, in a show of force by the CJP online movement.
The CJP has won millions of followers on social media since its launch in May, fuelling one of the biggest challenges to Hindu-nationalist PM Modi since he won his third term in office in 2024.
“We won’t stop. Pradhan has to be sacked,” CJP’s Ashutosh Ranka said in a social media post.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke urged protesters on Tuesday not to lose hope. “They want to break our spirit,” he said, perched on top of a lorry. “Do not let them silence you.”
Organisers and hundreds of protesters remained camped at the Jantar Mantar protest site today, many of them calling for wider changes in the education system.
Earlier on Monday, police fired tear gas and baton-charged protesters to stop them from marching on to parliament, in one of the biggest street rallies in Delhi in around five years.
At least 178 people, including cops, were injured in clashes between protesters and security officials, Delhi Police said while criticising what they described as “unruly, aggressive and violent behaviour” by a “violent mob”.
Protest organisers condemned the “high-handedness” of the authorities and said hundreds of protesters had been injured. “It’s a shameful day in the history of Indian democracy that people, honest students, who had come for a genuine issue were brutally beaten by the Delhi police,” Ranka told AFP.
Ranka, who met senior minister JP Nadda on Monday, said the government had yet to respond to their demands.
Protesters said they would not relent. “We have become even more fearless now,” said 25-year-old law student Chandra Pratap Sishwi. “When I saw people being beaten up by the police like that, my blood boiled.” Parliament was adjourned on Tuesday after the opposition benches demanded a discussion on the alleged “brutality unleashed on students”.
Despite rapid economic growth, millions of people in the world’s most populous nation still struggle to find stable and well-paying jobs, fuelling discontent.
The protests follow a series of examination scandals that have shaken confidence in the country’s testing system.
Some 2.2 million aspiring medical students sat for a re-examination under tight security last month after the previous test was scrapped following the leak of a question paper. That came on top of another scandal related to the online marking system of tests taken by nearly 2m high school students.
Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2026
