Delhi police once again obstructed protests in India’s capital on Monday as thousands of people returned to the streets, led by opposition leaders, to demand the resignation of the election commissioner. After mass unrest in the capital over the weekend, when thousands of people were detained and harassed by police as they attempted to take part in a protest led by the gen Z Cockroach movement, on Monday the main opposition leaders led another procession through Delhi, this time to the supreme court. The leader of India’s opposition alliance, Rahul Gandhi, alongside other opposition figures and student groups, had declared their intention to march to the country’s top court and submit a petition calling for India’s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, to step down.
Kumar has become a deeply controversial figure for his role in an exercise to verify and “purify” India’s electoral rolls, in which more than 130 million names – more than the population of Japan – have been deleted from voter lists since last year. Opposition parties and civil society groups allege that Kumar implemented this so-called special intensive revision (SIR) as a measure to help entrench the power of Narendra Modi’s government and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). Muslim voters and other minorities who are traditionally not BJP voters have allegedly been disproportionately affected by the deletions.
The election commission has denied favouring any party and said wrongly deleted voters could re-enrol, while the BJP has accused its rivals of trying to undermine the country’s democracy by questioning legitimate electoral processes. Multiple metro stations had been closed on Monday in central Delhi and police barricades prevented the thousands of protesters reaching within 600m of the supreme court, forcing thousands of people to turn back. However, lawyers confirmed they had submitted the petition on Gandhi’s behalf and by late evening, Gandhi himself had broken through the barricades and reached the court gates.
In a press conference before Monday’s march began, Gandhi reiterated his allegation that the Modi government was using Kumar and the election commission to commit “vote chori” (cheating) and accused Kumar of being a “thief”. Gandhi expressed support for the mass uprising of young people, led by the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) and student groups, who had tried to take to the streets and protest over the weekend but were met with police brutality and mass detentions. The SIR and calls for Kumar’s resignation has galvanised support for India’s beleaguered opposition parties, who are seen to have flailed in the face of the BJP’s electoral power.
Gandhi was detained twice last week after the police refused to let him and other opposition leaders reach Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in Delhi’s centre. Among the opposition politicians marching on Monday was Mahua Moitra, who was also detained last week. In her constituency in West Bengal she alleged that upwards of 10,000 voters had been unjustly removed from the electoral rolls.
People know that their votes have been stolen and this government is finished,” said Moitra. If we don’t stand up to this, then there will be nothing left of our country.” Moitra accused the supreme court of helping to validate the SIR process and disenfranchise millions of Indians. However, the issue exploded last month after the Indian Express newspaper reported on multiple irregularities in the SIR process that had been unilaterally pushed through by Kumar.
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