Protests spread across India over electoral-roll revision and election commissioner’s resignation

Protests took place across India on October 2 against the nationwide revision of electoral rolls, with demonstrators demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and greater transparency from the Election Commission. The mobilizations were reported in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Patna and other cities, reflecting growing political concern over whether eligible voters have been removed from draft lists.

In New Delhi, police detained more than 700 people near Jantar Mantar and on surrounding roads, according to a report on the demonstrations. Access to several metro stations in central Delhi was temporarily limited, and internet service was suspended in parts of the area. The protesters opposed the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, and called for the earlier electoral rolls to remain in force while the disputed changes were examined.

Mumbai saw separate actions. A large gathering at Shivaji Park included student organizations and regional political groups, while about 120 people demonstrated in Goregaon with support from civic and religious organizations. Participants asked that voters who had been removed without adequate grounds be restored and called for an investigation into the possible misuse of Form 7, the document used to request deletion of a name from the rolls.

Organizers in Mumbai acknowledged that some removals could be legitimate, including cases involving people who had died or moved away. Their objection was to the scale of the exercise and the way individual deletions were being handled. The Election Commission’s position, as reported locally, is that people missing from draft rolls can seek re-enrollment through the normal application process.

The dispute has intensified after the revision removed roughly 13 crore names from draft electoral rolls nationwide, according to reporting on the Election Commission’s response. The figure has prompted scrutiny within the commission as well as criticism from opposition parties and civil-society groups. Officials have been instructed to compare voter lists from before and after the revision, identify people who appear to have been excluded by mistake and contact them so they can apply again through Form 6, the standard application for adding a voter.

The commission ordered special enrollment campaigns in 20 states and union territories where the revision had been completed. Assistance camps were scheduled for October 3, 4, 10 and 11. The exercise is intended to find voters left out of the revised lists and provide a route for their names to be restored, while preserving the commission’s broader effort to remove duplicate, deceased or otherwise ineligible entries.

The controversy also reached Karnataka, where Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar and members of his cabinet held a six-hour protest outside the state election office in Bengaluru. Shivakumar alleged that large numbers of Form 7 requests had been submitted to target eligible voters, and warned that minority and disadvantaged communities could be especially exposed. He also accused political opponents of organizing mass filings, allegations that remained politically contested and had not been independently established in the report.

After the protest, Karnataka’s chief electoral officer directed officials in all 224 assembly constituencies to examine claims involving false declarations and to pursue legal action where evidence warranted it. The order required inquiries before any criminal proceedings, making clear that the most serious allegations were still subject to verification.

The SIR process is intended to update electoral registers, but the scale of the deletions has turned an administrative exercise into a national political dispute. The commission’s special drives may help restore names that were removed in error, while the protests are pressing for a fuller account of how deletions were proposed, checked and communicated to affected voters. The issue is therefore likely to remain contested as officials review the lists and voters seek inclusion before future elections.