India’s opposition rallies for election chief’s resignation

Thousands of protesters gathered in New Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, as opposition parties accused election officials of removing eligible voters from electoral rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing party.

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress party, led the rally at Ramlila Maidan with other leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc. The BBC reported that tens of thousands attended. Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were among the politicians at the event, along with Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav.

The dispute centres on a voter-list exercise known as the Special Intensive Revision, which has removed about 130 million names from draft electoral rolls. The Election Commission says the exercise is intended to remove people who have died, moved away or are otherwise ineligible to vote. It denies favouring any party and says people whose names were wrongly removed can register again.

Opposition parties say eligible voters have been removed to help Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party win elections. Al Jazeera reported that they also allege the removals disproportionately affect Muslims and other minorities they consider unlikely to support the BJP. The party denies manipulating the process and has accused its opponents of undermining democracy by challenging legitimate electoral procedures.

Protesters chanted “Save the vote, save the country” and “Vote thief, give up power.” Some waved Indian and party flags as opposition leaders travelled through the crowds in a jeep. Security forces deployed around the venue, and authorities put barricades and traffic restrictions in place.

“We don’t even know if this is a people’s mandate or a stolen mandate,” Isha, a Delhi development-sector professional at the rally, told the BBC. Deepro Guha, a Delhi lawyer, told the broadcaster: “If people’s names are removed without any explanation, there is a problem.”

The rally followed weeks of demonstrations over the revisions. Before the event, Gandhi called the opposition campaign a fight against “the demolition of Indian democracy” and said millions were being disenfranchised. Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda rejected the rally as a “carefully orchestrated drama,” telling the ANI news agency that it was “a calculated conspiracy to plunge the nation into anarchy, all in the name of democracy.”

On Saturday, INDIA bloc leaders held a symbolic impeachment of Kumar at Kharge’s Delhi residence, accusing him of “conspiring to steal elections.” The proceeding had no legal standing; removing the chief election commissioner requires a formal parliamentary process. Modi has not directly commented on the mock impeachment, but at rallies on Friday and Saturday he accused opposition parties of trying to create chaos and undermining the constitution’s dignity.

The BBC reported that the controversy intensified after The Indian Express said in September that Kumar had made key decisions about the revision despite objections from the other two election commissioners on more than a dozen occasions. The Election Commission said differences of opinion were normal and did not affect its work.