India's opposition set to hold mega rally seeking election chief's resignation

India’s opposition prepares for a huge rally demanding the election chief’s resignation

Rahul Gandhi has urged people to turn out in large numbers at the protest venue

Tens of thousands are expected to assemble in India’s capital, Delhi, for a major opposition rally calling for the chief election commissioner to resign and for electoral reforms.

Organised by the main opposition Congress party, the rally is due to start around noon at the well-known Ramlila Maidan grounds, with party leaders saying as many as one million people may attend.

Several senior figures from the Congress-led INDIA alliance have said they will be there, and the influential Gen Z-led pressure group Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has also promised its backing.

The demonstration comes as criticism grows over a voter-list revision drive that has deleted 130 million names from draft rolls across India.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) says the exercise is meant to update the voters’ list by removing the names of people who have died or moved away from their registered addresses.

Opposition parties, however, say the process — known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) — could help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by striking eligible voters from the rolls. They accuse the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the BJP of “vote chori (theft)”. Both the BJP and the ECI have rejected the claims.

Protests have been continuing for weeks, demanding CEC Kumar’s resignation and electoral reforms.

The Election Commission said disagreements were normal in any institution and did not interfere with its work.

Still, concerns about the revision process have persisted, with opposition parties, the CJP and student groups staging multiple protests in Delhi and other Indian cities.

Last month, Congress MP and opposition leader Rahul Gandhi led tens of thousands of protesters in a march from Connaught Place in central Delhi to the Supreme Court, calling for the CEC’s resignation.

“The march was just the trailer,” a party leader told the BBC, adding that “Sunday’s rally will be several times bigger than that”.

Before the rally, Gandhi said the protest was against “the demolition of Indian democracy”, adding that “all the opposition parties and everybody who wants to come, political or non-political, is welcome”.

“There is huge anger, huge emotional pain because millions are being disenfranchised,” he said.

“We are all standing together because we are defending the Constitution. We are defending the idea of India. We are defending the vote, which is the expression of all Indians.”

Delhi police have approved Sunday’s rally, but under several conditions. Media reports say it must finish by 5pm, CCTV cameras must be set up at the site and no marches will be permitted beyond the designated protest area.

The planned mega rally has also split opinion among traders in Chandni Chowk, one of Delhi’s oldest and busiest markets, which is less than a kilometre from Ramlila Maidan.

Earlier this week, one group of traders said the protest could damage business during the festive season, coming only a week before Diwali.

But another traders’ group said it supported Gandhi’s rally and criticised the BJP for holding a march through the market on Thursday, saying that caused more disruption to the festive season.

Leaders of the ruling BJP also held a march in Chandni Chowk market on Thursday.

Authorities have stationed thousands of police and paramilitary personnel across the city, including on roads leading to Ramlila Grounds, the site of Sunday’s protest.

The opposition, which has been preparing for the rally for days, has accused the government of trying to prevent people from travelling to Delhi to join the protest.

Rahul Gandhi has appealed for a large turnout. “Don’t worry about the police, don’t worry about lathis [batons] - the BJP will not have the guts to try any of their antics,” he wrote on X.

His remarks come amid rising concern over how recent protests in the capital have been policed.

On 10 October, thousands of security personnel were deployed and large parts of the city were shut down to block protests called by the CJP against CEC Gyanesh Kumar.

All top CJP leaders were detained, and many protesters were beaten and dragged through the streets to disperse the demonstrations.

The CJP has openly supported the INDIA bloc rally, but it is not clear whether its senior leaders will attend.