Protests intensify in India over demands for election chief to quit

NEW DELHI: Thousands of youth protesters and opposition supporters rallied in Delhi and Mumbai on Sunday to demand the resignation of India’s election commission chief over changes to voter rolls, as police detained some demonstrators for a third day.

Opposition leaders Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray led protests in Mumbai, calling for the revisions to be scrapped and for Election Commission Chief Gyanesh Kumar to step down.

The protesters say the changes benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a charge denied by the Election Commission and the BJP.

In the capital, New Delhi, protesters started gathering in the early evening and some were detained by police, according to a Reuters witness.

Some demonstrators breached police barricades and surrounded vehicles carrying detained demonstrators, climbing onto them and laying on the road to block their path, the witness added.

“Police dragged me by my hair,” said Aahna Singh, an activist and political science student at Jawaharlal Nehru University who was protesting. “The police are resorting to brutality.”

Delhi Police did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Police in the capital have prevented protesters from assembling over the last two days, detaining dozens of them and transporting them away by bus.

Some of the detainees were released later on Friday and Saturday, but police registered cases against some on charges of violating orders banning mass gatherings in the centre of the capital.

Protesters say voter roll changes exclude millions

The protesters say the nationwide voter-roll revision exercise launched last year has disenfranchised millions of eligible voters by removing them from electoral rolls in a way that will benefit Modi’s party.

“I just want to tell the ruling party this much… We are angry about how you are wielding that power. It’s the people of this country who should decide who sits in power and who sits in opposition, not the Election Commission,” the opposition leader Raj Thackeray said.

The Election Commission says the exercise is designed to remove duplicate, deceased, or ineligible entries and maintain electoral integrity. On Friday, it directed its officials to register eligible voters inadvertently omitted from electoral rolls.

Kumar has not publicly responded to the demands for his resignation or commented on the protests, which look set to continue over the next few days due to more planned rallies.

An alliance of India’s opposition parties plans to launch protests to “save democracy” with a march to the Election Commission office on Monday. The Gen Z Cockroach Janta Party has announced plans for a major rally in Delhi on October 10.

The demonstrations represent the latest in a series of youth-led challenges to Modi’s government — unprecedented in his 12 years in power.

In July, student protests forced the ouster of the federal education minister following a leak of question papers for a national medical college entrance examination, marking the worst political crisis of Modi’s third term in office.