Indian opposition parties stage new protest against the elections chief

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s opposition parties on Sunday renewed calls for the resignation of the country’s election chief , staging fresh protests in the latest display of public dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

The protest, called by opposition bloc INDIA , drew thousands of demonstrators, some carrying musical instruments and waving various flags, as they chanted slogans against the policies of the central government. Several opposition parties of the alliance, formed in 2023 to unseat Modi, mobilized their cadres from different states for the protest, which comes weeks after a police crackdown on protesters in New Delhi.

Led by Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition Congress party, and backed by the youth “Cockroach” movement , the protesters called for the safeguarding of India’s democracy while demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a contentious voter roll revision.

The protesters gathered at Ramlila Maidan, a sprawling public square in New Delhi, after police last month withdrew Jantar Mantar from the list of officially designated venues for demonstrations. The historic observatory had long served as the capital’s main protest site.

Authorities deployed thousands of police and paramilitary soldiers and mounted extensive surveillance, with more than 200 CCTV cameras, drones and body-worn cameras at the venue and along the protest route, officials said.

The ongoing review of voter lists has removed more than 130 million names since last year. Critics say the exercise is politically motivated, threatens to disenfranchise millions more, and has disproportionately affected minorities, particularly Muslims.

The Election Commission and Modi’s administration deny the allegations and say the revision is intended to remove duplicate and ineligible entries.

Human Rights Watch on Thursday said the accusations over the voter roll revision raise “serious questions about the fairness of future Indian elections.”

“The authorities should immediately scrap the voter roll revision process that has denied India’s most marginalized people their right to vote and other government services,” said Elaine Pearson, the group’s Asia director, in a statement.

The call for Kumar’s resignation has for weeks been a rallying cry for opposition parties and supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party seeking to challenge Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Modi has not publicly commented on the protests. Some of his party leaders have dismissed the demonstrators as “anarchists” and suggested, without offering evidence, that they are backed by foreign powers.

In July, protests led by the youth “cockroach” movement forced the resignation of Modi’s education minister , a rare setback for Modi, who has been in power for more than 12 years. The movement began as an online satirical campaign this summer after India’s chief justice compared unemployed young people to parasites.