India Protests Demand Election Chief Quit Over Voter Rolls — SkimNews
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- Thousands of protesters rallied in New Delhi and Mumbai on Sunday, demanding the resignation of Election Commission Chief Gyanesh Kumar over a nationwide voter-roll revision launched last year that demonstrators say has removed millions of eligible voters.
- Opposition leaders Raj and Uddhav Thackeray led Mumbai protests calling for the revisions to be scrapped; protesters charge the changes benefit PM Modi's BJP, a claim denied by both the Election Commission and the BJP.
- Police detained demonstrators for a third straight day, with some breaching barricades in Delhi and surrounding vehicles carrying detainees; activist Aahna Singh said police 'dragged me by my hair,' while Delhi Police did not respond to comment requests.
- The Election Commission says the exercise removes duplicate, deceased, or ineligible entries; on Friday it directed officials to register eligible voters inadvertently omitted from electoral rolls.
- An opposition alliance plans a march to the Election Commission office on Tuesday to 'save democracy,' while the Gen Z Cockroach Janta Party has announced a major Delhi rally for October 10.
Why it matters: The protests mark an escalation beyond July's student-led crisis that forced out Modi's education minister — his third term's worst political test — and now target the referee of India's elections ahead of state contests, raising the cost for Modi's BJP of defending a revision the opposition calls disenfranchisement by design.
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