Opposition Marches on India's Supreme Court Over Voter-Roll Purge as Police Stop Crowds 600 Meters Short and Drop Jantar Mantar as Protest Site

Since the Cockroach Janta Party's Saturday, Oct. 10 rally was met with a citywide lockdown and mass detentions, the fight over India's voter-roll revision has moved from the streets to the courts. On Monday, Oct. 12, opposition parties marched through New Delhi to the Supreme Court to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Lawyers submitted a petition to the chief justice on Rahul Gandhi's behalf alleging irregularities in the nationwide revision. Several opposition lawmakers and thousands of supporters took part, including student activists.

Barricades and a broken line

Police did not let the crowd walk freely. Barricades kept thousands of protesters about 600 meters from the court and forced many to turn back. By late evening, Gandhi had broken through the barricades and reached the court gates, according to The Guardian's reporting from the scene.

Authorities closed six metro stations in central Delhi and warned of traffic disruption. Thousands of security personnel were deployed for a third straight day.

The turnout was far larger than the opposition managed over the weekend, when police effectively sealed off much of the capital. Gandhi was detained twice last week after police refused to let him and other opposition leaders reach Jantar Mantar, The Guardian reported.

Most of those held over the weekend, including three top Cockroach leaders, have since been released, according to local media reports carried by AFP. Several journalists said they were detained despite displaying press cards.

Jantar Mantar is out

On Monday, Delhi Police announced that Jantar Mantar would no longer be a designated venue for rallies. Police said three replacement sites had been chosen. The announcement named no date for the change.

Jantar Mantar has been the capital's best-known protest ground for years. The Cockroach movement held a sit-in there that lasted weeks and led to the resignation of Modi's education minister in July.

The move follows police rejection last week of the Cockroach Janta Party's permit application for a large demonstration. Delhi Police cited the party's failure to give the required 10 days' notice and said the group had been unruly at earlier large protests.

The numbers and the dispute

More than 133 million names have been removed from voter lists since the special intensive revision began last year, according to media reports. About 969 million people were eligible to vote in India's 2024 election.

Opposition parties and civil society groups allege Kumar ran the exercise to entrench Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party. They also say Muslims and other minorities, who are traditionally not BJP voters, were disproportionately affected by the deletions.

Gandhi repeated his accusation of "vote chori," or vote theft, before the march and called Kumar a "thief." "Till the constitution is upheld, till the chief election commissioner is removed, till the system of elections is revamped, till justice is served for India, the youth won't stop," he said. Earlier he told reporters: "We will not back down."

The Election Commission and the BJP deny manipulation. They say the revision is needed to remove duplicate, deceased and ineligible names. The commission has said wrongly deleted voters can re-enroll. The BJP has accused its rivals of undermining democracy by questioning legitimate electoral processes.

Modi has not publicly commented on the protests. Some BJP leaders have called the activists "anarchists."

No court or independent body has ruled on whether the deletions were politically targeted, and the opposition has not been shown to have presented a verified count of wrongly removed eligible voters. The petition now before the chief justice is the first formal step the opposition has taken to put the question before India's highest court. Whether the court takes it up, and what Delhi Police does with the three replacement protest sites, are the next things to watch.