Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Delhi for a major opposition rally demanding the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner.
The rally, organised by the opposition INDIA bloc and led by Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party, is taking place at Ramlila Maidan, a large ground in central Delhi known for hosting cultural events and political protests.
Visuals showed Gandhi in an open-top jeep alongside other opposition leaders heading towards the venue. The Gen Z-led pressure group Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has also pledged support, though its leaders have yet to be seen.
Security has been tightened, with thousands of police and paramilitary personnel deployed near the grounds.
Sunday’s event is the latest show of opposition anger over a voter-list revision exercise that has removed 130 million names from draft electoral rolls in India.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) says the exercise is aimed at updating the voters’ list by purging names of people who have died or moved away from their registered addresses.
But opposition parties allege that the exercise – known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) – could benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by removing eligible voters from the rolls. They accuse the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the BJP of “vote chori (theft)”. Both the BJP and the ECI have denied the allegations.
The controversy intensified in September when The Indian Express newspaper in its investigation reported that the CEC, Gyanesh Kumar, made key decisions related to the exercise without the agreement of the two other election commissioners, who had raised objections on more than a dozen occasions.
Congress party supporters have gathered at the protest site in large numbers
The Election Commission said differences of opinion were normal in any institution and did not affect its functioning.
But concerns over the revision process have continued, with the opposition parties, the CJP and student groups organising a number of protests in Delhi and other Indian cities.
On Saturday, leaders of the INDIA bloc staged a symbolic impeachment of Kumar at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence in Delhi. The INDIA bloc – short for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance – is a group of opposition parties formed in 2023 to take on the governing BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
The mock parliamentary session, presided over by former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, saw leaders accuse the election chief of “conspiring to steal elections” and deliberately removing 130 million voters from electoral rolls.
Kharge, who is also the leader of the opposition in parliament’s upper house, moved a symbolic motion seeking Kumar’s removal, accusing him of undermining the electoral process and committing an act of “treason against the nation and the Constitution of India”.
Several people whose names had been removed from electoral rolls during the revision exercise also attended the event.
The proceedings were purely symbolic and had no legal standing. Under Indian law, the chief election commissioner can only be removed through a formal parliamentary process.
Prime Minister Modi has not directly commented on the mock impeachment proceedings. However, speaking at a public rally on Friday, he said that “some people” wanted to create chaos across the country so that he could be defamed.
Later on Saturday, while addressing a separate rally, he also accused opposition parties of “abandoning their duty” and “tearing apart the dignity and boundaries of the constitution”.
