On Monday, a rally drawing participants from across the country converged on the capital and marched toward the Supreme Court, as friction between the Election Commission of India and opposition parties over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls continued to mount, with Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi positioned at the head of the procession.

Eleven leaders from the INDIA bloc brought their protest to a close by lodging a formal petition with the election authority. Among those who filed the petition are Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, TMC's Saugata Roy, Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, Shiv Sena (UBT) representative Sanjay Raut, CPI(M) parliamentarian MA Baby, CPI's D Raja, JMM's Mahua Majhi, NCP (SCP) lawmaker Supriya Sule, and IUML's ET Mohammed Basheer.

Rahul Gandhi, speaking before the march got under way, put forward the claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shielding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and said the planned demonstration would draw the nation's attention to that concern. Among those who joined the procession were three state chief ministers from the opposition — DK Shivakumar of Karnataka, Revanth Reddy of Telangana, and Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu of Himachal Pradesh.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee joined the procession and described its purpose as seeking justice for all citizens. On the platform X, Rahul Gandhi later wrote that the day had carried personal meaning for him because, in his assessment, it had shown that people across India would not be deterred — a view he attributed to what the march demonstrated to the government. Neha Bora, who leads the All India Students' Association, walked alongside Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi throughout the event.

Foot traffic along portions of the capital's road network — among them Barakhamba Road and Mandi House — came to a halt as the 'March for Democracy' moved through the area. Crowds turned out bearing national flags, banners, and placards, with chants directed at what demonstrators described as procedural flaws in the SIR.

Upon bringing their case before the Supreme Court, those involved conveyed their expectation that the judicial process would deliver a fair outcome. Akhilesh Yadav, who contended that the Election Commission appeared to be acting at the direction of the BJP, expressed confidence that the Supreme Court would deliver a fair outcome, while Congress MP Shashi Tharoor noted that the Chief Justice of India had agreed to take up the opposition's concerns — a development Tharoor characterised as a win for democratic processes. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut stated that those gathered had come together alongside the public.

Addressing a gathering, Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar described the demonstration as an expression of concerns held by people throughout the country, called for the Special Intensive Revision process to be withdrawn, and urged that voting through paper ballots be reinstated. Separately, a statement attributed to protest participants framed the Supreme Court as the avenue through which constitutional and citizens' rights questions could be resolved.

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu alleged that voting rights had been suppressed, noting that Rahul Gandhi had brought the matter to public attention over the past two years, and added that party office-bearers at the AICC level would chart the path forward. Punjab Congress President Pargat Singh characterised the BJP as working to undermine democratic institutions, while party MP Amarinder Singh Raja Warring called on the Chief Justice to hold a meeting with opposition representatives, asking where ordinary citizens could take their concerns if that avenue remained closed to them.

Rajendra Pal Gautam, who holds the Congress party's in-charge post for Uttar Pradesh, put forward a claim that the administration's actions were working against the nation's interests. Allegations that ballots deemed valid by officials are being removed from the count, and that ballots are being manipulated, have surfaced in the discussion. Those gathered at the event stated that defending the Constitution was the purpose drawing them together.

During the march, a dispute arose over a post — since removed — published by the Kerala Congress unit that carried disparaging remarks about the Chief Justice of India and called for his replacement. The Supreme Court Bar Association took a public position against posts on social media calling for Chief Justice Surya Kant to step down, with the body stating that remarks of that kind undermine the judiciary as an institution and constitute an attempt to interfere with how justice is administered.

Congress MP Pawan Khera moved to separate the national party from the remarks, stating in attributed comments that the party stood in full opposition to the position taken, regardless of who had expressed it. The party expressed confidence in the country's judicial system and indicated it would honour rulings handed down by the highest court, with a representative explaining to a prominent television channel that trust in the judiciary had driven the decision to bring the matter before the country's highest court.

The individual who had managed the party's official X account was relieved of that role, KPCC President Sunny Joseph announced, adding that the organisation would look into the conditions under which the post came to be published. Joseph noted that the party had not raised any objection to the independence of the courts, and that any online content at odds with that stance did not represent the official position of the KPCC leadership.

A written communication from Chief Justice Surya Kant, dated October 11 and addressed to Rahul Gandhi and Kharge in reply to their October 10 representation, prompted INDIA Bloc leaders to lodge the petition. A hearing date of 13 October had already been placed on the court's calendar in relation to petitions on comparable legal questions, and the Chief Justice gave assurance that any newly filed petition would be taken up at the earliest opening permitted under the applicable procedure.

A writ lodged under Article 32 asks the court to halt the nationwide SIR process while the constitutional questions it raises are being heard and decided. Among the demands put forward is the formation of an oversight panel — chaired by a retired judge of the Supreme Court and operating free of government control — tasked with scrutinising how the voter roll revision process was carried out and auditing the technical frameworks behind electoral registers and Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

Those filing the petition have drawn attention to a dispute over whether the Chief Election Commissioner acted on powers that belong collectively to the Election Commission, doing so without the awareness or agreement of the other Commissioners serving alongside him. A demand for documentation tied to the decision to launch the nationwide SIR has also been put forward, covering internal files, meeting minutes, notings, and any objections formally recorded by the commissioners.

At the heart of the plea lies an argument that the Election Commission operates as a constitutionally mandated multi-member body, with any actions touching on electoral rolls required to align with both Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. According to a newspaper account cited in the petition, the two Election Commissioners put their dissent on record no fewer than 14 times across a ten-month period, with those objections spanning matters of voter enrolment, the removal and reinstatement of names from rolls, and the handling of access to electoral-roll data.

The Election Commission noted that voting on every ruling put before it had been unanimous, adding that disagreement among participants is a natural feature of any deliberative body. Among the points raised in the petition is a challenge to whether any formal authorisation for the nationwide SIR was ever issued.

Documents obtained through the Right to Information Act, 2005, show that a request for files and internal notings drew a response containing nothing beyond the Commission's order of 24 June 2025. In its subsequent findings, the First Appellate Authority put on record that no resolution to launch a countrywide SIR in 2025 had been adopted by the Commission at that point.

The petition goes on to challenge a change made to the online Form 6 hosted on the ECINET platform during July 2026, whereby a declaration was added requiring applicants to state whether they or their relatives appeared in an earlier SIR electoral roll — a modification the petition contends was carried out without any corresponding update to the governing rules. During proceedings still before the court, a verbal clarification issued on 5 October made plain that the modified Form 6 had not received the bench's approval.

Among the items the petition covers are requests for an outside technical review of who held access rights to the ECINET and ERONET electoral-roll databases, what changes were made to voter entries, what data was removed, and what procedures exist for reinstating voters who were wrongly excluded. Among the petition's contentions are claims involving the mass lodging of Form 7 objections, the alleged use of fabricated names, and the reported singling out of women and specific community groups.

Kiren Rijiju, the Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister, posted on X that openly disrespecting constitutional institutions was deplorable while also affirming every citizen's right to protest, though he described the Congress party as lacking direction. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey voiced objections to the march toward the Supreme Court, arguing that disputes touching on constitutional bodies should instead be channelled through established legal and parliamentary processes.