Delhi Police Visit to CPM Office Sparks Rajya Sabha Showdown; Nadda Recalls Emergency Arrest

A Delhi Police team's visit to the headquarters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Delhi to arrest its youth leader Aishe Ghosh led to heated exchanges in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. The police action, which occurred on Tuesday afternoon, was condemned by opposition parties as an infringement on democratic rights, while the ruling BJP defended it as a routine law-and-order matter.

Raising the issue in the Upper House, CPI(M) MP John Brittas said the police barged into the party office without uniforms and in a private vehicle. He stated that Ghosh, a former Jawaharlal Nehru University students' union president and current joint secretary of the Students' Federation of India, was sought in a 2021 case related to a protest on the JNU campus. “Her only mistake was she participated in the Jantar Mantar agitation,” Brittas said, demanding a response from Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Congress President and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge called for strict action against those responsible for the unauthorized entry. “I request you, people who have gone there unauthorized, they should be punished. Why have they gone? Who are they? Who ordered them?” he asked.

Union Health Minister and Leader of the House JP Nadda defended the police, calling it a “normal law and order situation”. Drawing a parallel to his own past, Nadda said, “I have been a student activist. I have been arrested many times from the classroom in emergency days when the Congress party was ruling.” He added that the police acted appropriately and accused the opposition of sensationalizing the incident.

Video footage shared by the CPI(M) on social media showed Brittas confronting police personnel at the party's headquarters, AKG Bhavan. The party accused the government of using police power to intimidate and silence dissent, stating, “This brazen intrusion into a political party office and the continuing witch hunt against student protesters expose the Modi government's escalating assault on democratic rights.”

The incident has reignited debate over the use of police powers against political parties and student activists, with opposition parties demanding a thorough investigation into the police's conduct.