NEW DELHI — Leaders of India’s opposition INDIA bloc rallied supporters at New Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on Sunday, demanding that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign over alleged irregularities in a revision of voter lists.
The protest targets the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, of electoral rolls. According to The Tribune, opposition parties accuse the poll body of failing to protect the integrity of elections. They describe the alleged irregularities as “vote chori,” or vote theft.
Leaders of INDIA bloc parties rode in open buses from 10 Rajaji Marg, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s home, toward Connaught Place and on to Ramlila Maidan, The Tribune reported.
Those attending included Rahul Gandhi, the opposition leader in the lower house of Parliament, along with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Priyanka Gandhi, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee and Tejashwi Yadav, ThePrint reported.
Gandhi targets election chief
Addressing the crowd, Rahul Gandhi said Kumar would be removed from his post, according to ThePrint.
“Without Gyanesh Kumar, neither Narendra Modi would have become Prime Minister nor Amit Shah would have become Home Minister.”
The Congress leader also said Kumar would go to jail. He told supporters he felt bad that the election chief was “scared and cannot sleep at night.”
In remarks reported by The Tribune, Rahul Gandhi accused Modi, Shah and Kumar of attacking the country’s soul, Constitution and democracy, and said the opposition would not accept it. He also alleged that the BJP forcibly shut shops in Connaught Place as opposition leaders marched through the area.
The opposition’s vote-theft allegations have not been independently verified.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has accused the opposition of conspiring to destabilize the government, ThePrint reported.
Before the rally, Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal called the protest a “stern warning” to Modi and Shah. He said government leaders had lost their composure over the public support. In his view, that explained why they were calling protesters anarchists and the agitation an insult to Parliament.
Turnout and security
Estimates of the crowd varied widely. The INDIA bloc said it expected up to 10 lakh people, or 1 million, while Delhi Police anticipated about 50,000, according to The Tribune.
Supporters came from parties ranging from the Congress to the Communist Party of India and from the Samajwadi Party to the Rashtriya Janata Dal, ThePrint reported. For some supporters, the trip from Assam took more than 40 hours by train. Others came by bus from Haryana.
More than 4,000 Delhi Police personnel were deployed. The force installed over 200 CCTV cameras and divided the venue into 14 zones. Drone surveillance and body-worn cameras were part of the plan, along with anti-riot vehicles and a dedicated control room. Central Armed Police Forces were posted along the route from Minto Bridge and inside the grounds.
Mock impeachment and youth movement
The rally followed a Saturday event in which 21 INDIA bloc parties, led by the Congress, “impeached” Kumar in a mock parliament, ThePrint reported. Their six-point resolution accused him of electoral manipulation, large-scale voter deletions and compromising the commission’s independence, and demanded his immediate removal.
Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party, met Banerjee in Delhi on Saturday and thanked her for supporting the group’s protests. He backed the opposition rally but said his group would keep its independent identity and stay out of Sunday’s event, according to The Tribune.
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