NEW DELHI (The Thursday Times) — India’s opposition INDIA bloc rallied at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on Sunday to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, with Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and the leaders of allied parties arriving on open-top buses as thousands of supporters marched through the capital under heavy security.
The “Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao” (Save the Vote, Save the Nation) rally, a day after the bloc’s symbolic “public impeachment” of Kumar, is the latest show of strength against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which the opposition says has been used to strike millions of voters off the lists. Supporters marched from the Minto Road–Connaught Place junction, some wearing white to represent voters they say were wrongly marked dead, and carried placards reading “Vote chor, Gyanu”.
Leaders including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi travelled together from Kharge’s residence. Left parties and student groups brought contingents from universities across Delhi. More than 3,000 police officers and 10,000 paramilitary personnel were deployed, and police installed up to 250 CCTV cameras around the ground, whose capacity is about 50,000. The opposition had predicted a turnout of one million.
Gandhi accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of forcing shops along the march route in Connaught Place to close to hurt traders during the festive season, after the opposition had urged supporters to shop locally. “Our protest will not stop with just one rally,” senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid said. “Our movement will continue.” Akhilesh Yadav said the “limits of injustice have been crossed”.
BJP counter-marches
The BJP dismissed the rally as a “designed drama”. Party president J P Nadda accused Gandhi of trying to “paralyse Delhi” during Dhanteras, Diwali and Chhath Puja and of acting as a “toolkit” of foreign forces. The party held parallel “Loktantra Bachao, Arajakta Hatao” (Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy) marches in Rohtak, Faridabad and Shimla, while Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan compared the Congress to the fox who calls the grapes sour after losing three elections.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta led a BJP march through the capital with party leaders wearing black headbands in memory of the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, accusing the Congress of holding its rally on the anniversary of the killings. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh called the crowd at Ramlila Maidan “a sea of humanity” before the speeches began, saying “the countdown to Gyanesh Kumar’s exit further accelerates”.
The opposition submitted a formal notice in March seeking Kumar’s removal in both houses of Parliament, and has said it will press for it again in the Winter Session. The Election Commission says the revision is clearing out dead, duplicate and shifted voters.
