Police in New Delhi briefly detained Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other opposition lawmakers on Tuesday after barricades halted an INDIA bloc march toward the Election Commission headquarters on Ashoka Road, the latest flashpoint in a nationwide fight over the Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls.
What happened on Parliament Street
Leaders of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi set out from Parliament House with dozens of MPs, waving placards and chanting slogans demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign. Officers stopped the column on Parliament Street, where Kharge and Gandhi sat in a dharna as security forces ringed the area.
Delhi Police detained Gandhi and several colleagues when protesters pressed against the barricades, according to AFP and local broadcast footage. Gandhi was released a short time later, reporters at the scene said, and the march did not reach the commission’s gates. A protester in an RSS-style uniform also appeared in the crowd, drawing attention from television cameras as parties traded accusations over optics and security planning.
Why the opposition is mobilizing
The confrontation follows weeks of demonstrations — including youth-led “Cockroach” rallies in Mumbai and Delhi — over a voter-roll cleanup that began in Bihar in 2025 and has since expanded nationwide. Opposition parties allege the exercise removes names likely to favor anti-BJP voters while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission insist the process weeds out duplicates, deceased entries and ineligible registrations.
Commission data cited in court filings show more than 130 million names struck from draft lists, a scale that opposition leaders say could tilt upcoming state elections. Congress president Kharge called Kumar’s exit, cancellation of the revision and a return to paper ballots “non-negotiable” demands, while the BJP accuses opponents of trying to delegitimize an independent constitutional body.
Courts and the commission’s response
The Supreme Court on Monday said it had not approved any modified version of Form 6, the statutory application for voter enrollment, and ordered the commission to produce records on who authorized changes tied to the revision. The court earlier indicated that commission decisions must be unanimous or by majority among its three members, raising questions about internal disagreements that the poll body denies.
On Friday the Election Commission directed booth-level officers to re-enroll voters inadvertently dropped from rolls, a concession opponents say came too late after months of protests. Foreign Minister-level statements from the government have not shifted the opposition’s central demand: Kumar’s resignation and a halt to the revision before ballots are set for several states in early 2027.
Tuesday’s detentions are unlikely to end the standoff. Both sides are preparing for another round of street action on October 10, when the Cockroach movement has called supporters back to major cities while parliament’s winter session debates electoral law and security spending.