Indian opposition protests against President of the Electoral Commission

Othe parties of the Indian opposition again today demanded the resignation of the country's senior election officer, organizing new protests in the latest sign of public protest to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

The protest, called by the coalition of the INDIA opposition, brought together thousands of protesters, some of whom carried musical instruments and waved flags of various colors, while chanting slogans against the policies of the central government.

Several parties of the alliance, created in 2023 with the aim of driving Modi away from power, mobilized militants from different states for the demonstration, which takes place weeks after a police crackdown on demonstrators in New Delhi.

Led by Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition party, the Congress Party, and supported by the Cockroach youth movement, protesters called for the defense of Indian democracy and demanded the resignation of the President of the Electoral Commission, Gyanesh Kumar, due to a controversial review of the electoral notebooks.

The protesters concentrated on Ramlila Maidan, a vast public square in New Delhi, after the police withdrew, last month, Dinner Keep from the list of officially authorized venues for demonstrations. The historic observatory had long been the capital's main protest site.

The authorities mobilized thousands of police and military agents from paramilitary forces and installed a wide surveillance device, with more than 200 surveillance cameras, drones and cameras attached to the uniforms of the agents, both at the site of the demonstration and along the route, according to official officials.

The revision of the current electoral notebooks has already led to the elimination of more than 130 million names since last year. Critics consider that the process has political motivations, threatens to deprive millions of people of the right to vote and disproportionately affects minorities, in particular the Muslim community.

The Electoral Commission and the Modi Government reject the charges and state that the review aims to eliminate duplicate entries and registers of people without the right to vote.

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that the charges concerning the revision of electoral notebooks raise “serious questions about the fairness of future elections in India.”.

“ The authorities must immediately suspend the process of reviewing the electoral notebooks, which deprived the most marginalised people in India of the right to vote and access to other public services,” said Elaine Pearson, director of the organization for Asia, in a statement.

In recent weeks, Kumar's resignation has become one of the main slogans of opposition parties and supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party, who seek to challenge the Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata, led by Modi.

Modi did not publicly comment on the protests. Some leaders of their party rated the protesters as “anarchists” and suggested, without presenting evidence, that they are supported by foreign powers.

In July, protests led by the Cockroach youth movement led to the resignation of Modi’s Minister of Education, in a rare setback for the Prime Minister, who has been in power for more than 12 years.

The movement emerged during the summer, as a satirical social media campaign, after the president of the Supreme Court of India compared unemployed young people to parasites and cockroaches.