Opposition Parties Demand Resignation of Election Chief Gyanesh Kumar
The INDIA bloc and BRS are protesting across India, demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign over alleged voter-roll irregularities.
Opposition parties and the INDIA bloc are demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that the Election Commission of India's Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls is a criminal conspiracy to disenfranchise voters. The controversy intensified following reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected to revision-related decisions 14 times over the last 10 months.
Protests began in Hyderabad on October 8, where the Telangana Congress held a 'Chalo Lok Bhavan' march from the Indira Gandhi statue to Raj Bhavan. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi joined the movement, planning protests at the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer's office and in Delhi, while calling for a Supreme Court-supervised inquiry into voter deletions.
In New Delhi, authorities deployed over 20,000 police and paramilitary officers on October 9 to block mass rallies at Jantar Mantar. Despite these restrictions, leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge met with President Droupadi Murmu on Friday evening to lodge formal complaints. KC Venugopal characterized the struggle as a "do-or-die fight" to protect the common people from the "destroyers of Indian democracy."
The Election Commission of India has defended its processes, stating the revision aims to remove duplicate and ineligible voters and that internal disagreements are a normal part of institutional deliberations.
