NEW DELHI – India’s opposition parties on Sunday intensified demands for the resignation of the country’s election chief, holding fresh demonstrations in the latest show of public opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
The protest, organized by the opposition INDIA bloc, attracted tens of thousands of people. Some demonstrators carried musical instruments and waved flags while chanting slogans criticizing the central government’s policies. Multiple alliance parties, formed in 2023 to challenge Modi, brought supporters from across the country to the rally, held weeks after police cracked down on protesters in New Delhi.
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition Congress party, led the demonstration alongside supporters of the youth “Cockroach” movement. Protesters called for India’s democracy to be protected and demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a disputed revision of the voter rolls.
The crowds assembled at Ramlila Maidan, a large public ground in New Delhi, after police removed Jantar Mantar from the capital’s list of officially approved protest locations last month. The historic observatory had traditionally been the city’s primary venue for demonstrations.
Officials said thousands of police officers and paramilitary personnel were deployed for the event. Authorities also maintained extensive surveillance, using more than 200 CCTV cameras, drones and body-worn cameras at the rally site and along the protest route.
The voter-list review has removed more than 130 million names since last year. Critics argue that the exercise is politically driven, could strip millions more of their voting rights and has had a disproportionate impact on minorities, especially Muslims.
The Election Commission and Modi’s administration reject those claims. They say the revision is designed to eliminate duplicate records and entries belonging to people who are not eligible to vote.
Human Rights Watch said Thursday that the allegations surrounding the voter-roll revision raised “serious questions about the fairness of future Indian elections.”
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“The authorities should immediately scrap the voter roll revision process that has denied India’s most marginalized people their right to vote and other government services,” Elaine Pearson, the group’s Asia director, said in a statement.
The demand for Kumar to step down has become a central rallying point for opposition parties and supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party, which is seeking to challenge Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. Opposition groups, led largely by Congress, accuse the ruling BJP of systematically manipulating the electoral process, describing the alleged practice as “vote chori,” or vote theft.
Modi has not publicly addressed the demonstrations. Several leaders from his party have branded the protesters “anarchists” and alleged, without providing evidence, that foreign powers are supporting them.
In July, demonstrations led by the youth “cockroach” movement forced Modi’s education minister to resign, marking an uncommon political setback for the prime minister, who has governed for more than 12 years. The movement began as an online satire campaign this summer after India’s chief justice likened unemployed young people to parasites.
Suresh Sharma, a protester from the northern state of Haryana, said India’s political system needed to change, arguing that democracy was being suffocated.
Sharma said the voter-roll revision should be abandoned. “We demand that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign and be arrested,” he said.
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