The Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders, including Parliamentarians, ended their 24-hour ‘dharna’ at the Mandir Marg police station in the national Capital where they were detained on Monday for protesting outside the Election Commission office. The 10-member delegation of the TMC had staged a protest demanding to change the chiefs of central probe agencies like ED, CBI and NIA.

BJP dubbed the dharna outside the Nirvachan Sadan as a “drama” and an attempt to divert attention from the “misdeeds” of its leaders ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.  “The TMC leaders created a scene outside the office of ECI to run away from the real issues. If they have any grievance, they can move the court. What are they doing outside the ECI’s office?” BJP leader Rahul Sinha said.

The 10-member TMC delegation comprised of Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, Mohammed Nadimul Haque, Dola Sen, Saket Gokhale, Sagarika Ghose, MLA Vivek Gupta, former MPs Arpita Ghosh, Santanu Sen and Abir Ranjan Biswas and TMC West Bengal students’ wing vice-president Sudip Raha. AAP leaders, including Saurabh Bharadwaj, joined the TMC protest at the police station.

Police said they released the TMC leaders on Monday night.

However, the leaders stayed put at the police station through the night and continued their dharna. “Today, they again came back to the police station.

They are still allowed to go but they are not leaving the police station,” a police officer said.

In a social media post Gokhale said the party leaders were continuing their protest at the police station. “As we said - our protest is for 24 hrs. We’re all at Mandir Marg Police Station, where we were detained, silently carrying on our protest,” he said.