On Friday, 2 October, Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi voiced support for demonstrations targeting the Election Commission of India, contending that participants were being taken in for questioning over claims of electoral fraud and calling for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to step down.
On Gandhi Jayanti, gatherings in Delhi and Mumbai called on the election body to address what participants described as discrepancies in voter rolls and to open its processes to greater public scrutiny — a backdrop against which his comments were delivered.
Upwards of 1,000 people were taken into custody at Jantar Mantar, news outlets reported, where a crowd of several hundred had assembled for a demonstration that authorities had not authorised.
In a Hindi-language post on X, Gandhi described a scene of large numbers of young people gathering in public spaces to contest what he characterised as electoral fraud, noting that they were doing so through peaceful means within the bounds of their constitutional entitlements, and conveyed their stated position that Gyanesh Kumar should step down from his post. His written message called for the protection of democratic institutions.
He charged that the authorities responded by detaining young people whose only apparent offence was raising questions about alleged electoral fraud, and invoked the teachings of Gandhi — truth-telling and peaceful resistance — as the guiding principle behind the protests.
In a written piece, Gandhi argued that the authorities' deeper anxiety lay not with assembled crowds themselves but with the probing questions those gatherings represented — and that Gyanesh Kumar's time in the post would draw to a close either way, given that force can scatter people from a street but holds no sway over the act of questioning itself.
Demonstrations in Delhi against the Election Commission of India's management of electoral-roll revisions — including the process known as the Special Intensive Revision — drew participation from opposition parties, youth groups, and civil society activists. Protesters have raised concerns that the review process risks removing eligible voters from the rolls, and they are calling for a halt to any further alterations to the register.
Authorities withheld authorisation for the planned gathering at Jantar Mantar, stationing a substantial contingent of officers throughout the area and its surroundings. Over 1,000 people — among them opposition figures and activists — were detained when authorities moved to disperse the gatherings. Demonstrations held across various regions of the country had been directed at both Kumar and the ECI before this move was taken.
Tens of thousands gathered at Shivaji Park in Mumbai for a Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) rally that went ahead without the police clearance the organisers had not been granted. Naseeruddin Shah was among those present at the gathering, which also drew organisational backing from both the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
A call for Kumar's removal from office has come from the CJP, alongside a push for clearer procedures governing how the Chief Election Commissioner is selected. The party has also put forward a demand that the 2025 electoral roll be kept in its current state, on the grounds that any further alterations would undermine its integrity, while Gandhi used the same post to assert that young people have a duty to raise their voices whenever the conduct of elections comes into question, and that the responsibility for safeguarding every vote rests with the Election Commission of India.
Demonstrations by opposition groups are unfolding alongside a broader push by the Congress party and allied formations, which have raised questions about whether the Election Commission of India addressed their concerns over changes to voter rolls.
