From Barricades To Talks, Inside Delhi's Chalo Sansad Protest

By evening, central Delhi no longer looked like the seat of government. The streets around Parliament had turned into a landscape of barricades, riot police, tear-gas residue and scattered groups of protesters trying to regroup after repeated clashes. The Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) “Chalo Sansad” march, called on the opening day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session, had drawn thousands and ended in one of the capital’s biggest protest mobilisations in recent years.

Since late June, activist Sonam Wangchuk and CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke have been leading a sit-in and hunger strike at Jantar Mantar demanding Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over recurring examination irregularities, particularly those surrounding NEET-UG. What began as a campaign against paper leaks expanded into a broader movement on unemployment, governance and government accountability after Wangchuk's participation drew national attention.

Delhi Police maintained that no permission had been sought or granted for a march towards Parliament. DCP (New Delhi) Sachin Sharma said prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), restricting assemblies of five or more outside the designated protest area at Jantar Mantar, had been imposed across the district. Dipke pressed ahead regardless, asking participants to carry only the national flag and portraits of B.R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh, no party flags, and to keep the march peaceful.

Morning Standoff At Jantar Mantar 

By morning, Jantar Mantar had turned into a sea of people. Students, parents, and senior citizens packed the protest site, many having travelled long distances to be there.

Among them was Vishal Singh, 21, a student at Allahabad University who had travelled from Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh with five friends. "We are frustrated by the state of the education system and repeated paper leaks," he said, adding that they'd left home without informing their parents. Raquib, 22, had come from Meerut. Mahinder Kumar Gautam, 35, a daily-wage worker from Allahabad, said he simply wanted to stand with the students. "I have come here from UP," he said.

The procession, scheduled to begin at 9 am, never formally started. Protesters remained confined behind police barricades for hours as security personnel sealed every exit leading toward Parliament. Rain continued through the morning, but the crowd stayed in place, raising slogans and waiting for permission to move.

What started as a stand-off at a single barricade line became, by afternoon, thousands of protesters spread across a stretch of central Delhi rarely disrupted this widely at once.

Following the lathicharge, people scattered and regrouped across the city rather than dispersing. Tear-gas shells went up near the Sansad Marg–Parliament Street stretch and the Tolstoy Marg junction, then outside the National Media Centre and the Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC), normally among the quietest, most tightly controlled patches of the city.

Police said action was taken only after demonstrators tried to breach barricades and ignored warnings to disperse. Internet services were shut down in parts of the city as the march intensified.

Detentions Amid Claims And Confusion

It was amid this chaos that many were separated from their companions. Vishal lost his phone and got separated from all five of his friends, and hours later, he was still searching for them. Raquib spent the rest of the day navigating central Delhi alone after being pulled away from his group during the lathicharge; by evening, his eyes were still burning from tear gas and his phone had been damaged.

Kaniz Fatima, a Jamia Millia Islamia alumna who has been associated with the protest since its early days, questioned the scale of the police deployment. "Is this not our country?" she asked. "We've already sacrificed too much to stop now."

As videos of the clashes spread online, Delhi Police denied separate social media claims that officers had assaulted Wangchuk’s wife, Geetanjali Angmo, by pulling her hair, or that a 12-year-old girl was among dozens seriously injured. Police urged people not to circulate what they called misleading information.

Dozens of protesters were detained through the day. Police sources said those detained were taken to different parts of Delhi to prevent groups from regrouping, and would be released after verification, provided they had no previous criminal record.

From Streets To Negotiations 

The protest also disrupted large parts of central Delhi. Traffic remained backed up from Connaught Place to Barakhamba Road for several hours. Five Delhi Metro stations around Parliament and Jantar Mantar were closed, while signal jammers affected communication across parts of the protest zone.

Meanwhile, on the opening day of the Monsoon Session in Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's opening remarks did not refer to the protests unfolding a few hundred metres away.

Even as clashes continued on the streets, CJP spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka met Union Health Minister JP Nadda at his residence and submitted a written list of demands. According to Das, the memorandum sought Wangchuk's release from Safdarjung Hospital so he could address supporters at Jantar Mantar, Pradhan's resignation, and ₹1 crore compensation for the families of NEET aspirants who had died by suicide. 

Das said Nadda assured them the demands would be discussed with the leadership and a response would follow, though no immediate commitment was given.

At Safdarjung Hospital, Wangchuk wrote to the administration seeking permission to leave, arguing his health parameters were normal and that he wished to address protesters at Jantar Mantar. Hospital authorities maintained that while he wasn't formally under detention, they couldn't allow him to leave.

Dipke ended his own fast around midday and rejoined the march, telling supporters that today's confrontation was not the end of the movement. "The fight against examination irregularities and for accountability is going on," he said. "It does not end at Sansad Marg.”

As darkness fell, many protesters were still walking through central Delhi in search of transport, friends they had lost in the chaos, or simply a way back after roads, Metro stations and large parts of the city’s administrative centre had been sealed off. Others returned to Jantar Mantar, where CJP leaders insisted the agitation would continue in the days ahead.