Delhi shuts metro stations, restricts traffic ahead of new protest against election chief — SkimNews
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- Delhi authorities closed six metro stations for 'security reasons' and imposed traffic restrictions on over 20 stretches ahead of Monday's opposition march to the Supreme Court protesting the voter list revision.
- Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar faces daily protests and calls for his resignation over a verification exercise that deleted over 130 million names — more than Japan's population — from electoral rolls.
- Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced a march to submit a memorandum to Chief Justice Surya Kant demanding an end to 'vote theft,' but the Chief Justice declined the meeting by email, saying the already-heard issue should be addressed through formal judicial proceedings.
- Election Commission data breaks down the 130 million deletions as 28 million deceased voters, 63 million who relocated, and 30 million who could not be traced.
- Police detained thousands of protesters over the weekend, including leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party, deploying thousands of security personnel to lock down central Delhi.
- Opposition parties allege Muslim voters and other minorities — unlikely BJP supporters — are disproportionately affected by the deletions, a charge the Election Commission and BJP both reject.
Why it matters: The removal of 130 million names from India's voter rolls — a figure exceeding Japan's entire population — has triggered the most sustained street challenge to Modi's government in his 12 years in power, with opposition parties framing it as engineered disenfranchisement that the Election Commission denies. Chief Justice Kant's refusal to meet the Congress delegation channels the dispute into formal judicial review rather than political protest, putting the legitimacy of upcoming elections under court scrutiny.
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