India’s opposition turned a street protest into a legal challenge on Monday. After leading supporters through the heart of New Delhi, Rahul Gandhi and fellow leaders of the INDIA alliance lodged a petition at the Supreme Court accusing the country’s election authority of purging the voter rolls on a staggering scale.
The dispute centres on the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, a nationwide re-check of who is entitled to vote. According to the petitioners, roughly 13 crore names, about 130 million people, have been struck off since it began. Critics argue that minorities and other vulnerable groups have borne the brunt.
Gandhi, who leads the opposition in the lower house, wants the judges to examine the internal paperwork behind the exercise: agendas, minutes and written notes kept by the two other commissioners, Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu. The aim is to establish whether Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar pushed the process through on his own. The filing, argued by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, also asks the court to freeze the revision while the case is pending.
Chief Justice Surya Kant had turned down a request from Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for a meeting, but promised in a letter that their petition would be heard quickly. Related cases are already listed for Tuesday.
Supporters spent well over four hours on the route. Congress claimed 250,000 people took part, a figure that could not be independently verified, and police let the column move largely unhindered until it neared the court. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav rode on the lead buses, and Kharge drew laughs by wearing a Batman mask. On the same day, Delhi police withdrew Jantar Mantar’s status as an approved protest venue.
Pressure is also coming from the youth-driven “Cockroach” movement, which already toppled Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in July. Its demand is simple: Kumar must resign.
