Evening Pulse: Courts wait, police file FIRs, and the opposition promises a longer fight

The day ended without a single courtroom answer and with every side digging in. The Supreme Court did not hear the opposition's petition on the voter-roll revision. Delhi Police took the legal route against Monday's march, and the opposition used its evening press conference to say it is preparing for a long campaign.

First, the loop we left open this afternoon. The INDIA bloc's petition against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was not listed on Tuesday because the 14 defects flagged by the registry had not been cured, PTI reported via ThePrint and Deccan Herald. When senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan mentioned a related plea for a journalist, Chief Justice Surya Kant replied that the court would list all these matters once the defects were fixed. So the hearing date now depends on the petitioners' own paperwork. The plea, filed by Rahul Gandhi and ten other leaders, seeks an interim suspension of the SIR and a judge-led audit of deletions.

The same PTI report recalled that the Chief Justice had earlier declined a request from Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge to meet him on the issue. In his written reply he called such a meeting on a pending matter "incompatible with established ethics and judicial propriety". Taken together, the court's signal looks consistent: it will hear the case, but only through a petition that is in order.

Something we had not reported by this afternoon: Delhi Police registered two FIRs over Monday's "March for Democracy", at the Barakhamba Road and Tilak Marg police stations, The Tribune and National Herald reported. Police said the march had no permission and alleged that protesters used a mini-truck to break through barricades. The Tribune reported that the Tilak Marg FIR, which concerns protesters who entered Supreme Court premises, names INDIA bloc leaders including Rahul Gandhi. National Herald said the names and the sections invoked were not immediately known. We found no Congress response to the FIRs.

Gandhi answered in his own way. After hosting INDIA bloc leaders, MPs, student groups and civil society members for tea at his residence, he told reporters that the resistance would continue "whether it takes six months, a year or two years", The Tribune reported. He said the Constitution had been "torn" and accused the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Chief Election Commissioner of undermining democratic institutions. The Daily Jagran reported that he kept the opposition's next move under wraps, calling it a surprise. Tejashwi Yadav, Supriya Sule, D Raja and M A Baby also spoke against the Commission, and Trinamool MP Sagarika Ghose repeated the demand that CEC Gyanesh Kumar resign.

The street did not wait for the politicians. Earlier on Tuesday, Cockroach Janta Party leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka climbed over the gates into Jantar Mantar, which the police de-notified as a protest site on Sunday, and were detained while waving the national flag, India Today NE reported. Al Jazeera said about 20 volunteers were held and that police did not immediately respond to its request for comment.

The two loops still open from this morning remain open. We found no statement from the Election Commission or from Gyanesh Kumar on the resignation demand, and no fresh response from the BJP to the evening press conference. The Delhi Police operating rules for the three new protest grounds have not been published either. The contempt case over the metro curbs, deferred this morning, returns on Thursday.

Markets told a different story. The Sensex closed 1,109 points, or 1.54%, higher at 73,033.78, and the Nifty rose 358.60 points to 22,721.95, Business Standard reported. That is well above the midday levels we reported. IT stocks led again, with HCLTech and TCS at the front, and The Federal said the Nifty IT index had its biggest one-day gain since May 2025. Investors also read meaning into Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's remarks at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. She said Budget preparations had only just begun and it was too early to say whether long-term capital gains tax or the securities transaction tax would be reviewed, though the government would listen to market views, both outlets reported.