Authorities cancelled trains bound for Delhi and suspended mass transit on Friday, 9 October, ahead of a Saturday rally at Jantar Mantar. The Cockroach Janta Party said 10,000 of its supporters had been detained.
India's highest court issued a rare emergency order on Friday afternoon, asking the government to reconsider the limits and offer an alternative protest space, and said the Delhi metro should not be fully shut down.
The Special Intensive Revision began in June last year and has deleted more than 130 million voters, nearly 14 percent of India's total voters, according to Al Jazeera.
An Indian Express investigation published last month found that two of the three election commissioners formally objected at least 14 times to key SIR decisions taken by Gyanesh Kumar.
Police briefly detained Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders on Tuesday as they tried to march to the election commission office in New Delhi.
On Friday, 9 October, Indian authorities cancelled trains bound for Delhi and suspended mass transit in the capital, while several would-be protesters were effectively placed under house arrest, according to The New York Times. The measures responded to a call by the Gen Z movement known as the Cockroach Janta Party for people from across the country to converge on central Delhi for a protest on Saturday against what the group calls a politically motivated purge of the voter roll. The Saturday rally is to be held at Jantar Mantar, a long-used protest site that security forces are currently blockading. The party said police had detained 10,000 of its supporters from across the country, and videos circulating on social media showed police pulling young would-be protesters off trains bound for Delhi in various parts of the country.
India's highest court issued a rare emergency order on Friday afternoon, urging the government to reconsider the limits on the protest and offer an alternative space for it. Responding to an appeal from an opposition party politician, the court also said the city's metro service should not be shut down completely. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Surya Kant, framed the issue in terms of policing.
“You have to prevent certain things”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not commented on this week's protests, according to The New York Times.
The protests target the Special Intensive Revision, known as SIR, which was launched in June last year to identify deceased, duplicate or dubious voters and remove them from the rolls. Al Jazeera reports that the process has deleted more than 130 million voters, nearly 14 percent of India's total voters, and that an overwhelming number of them are Muslims who do not usually vote for Modi's Hindu nationalist party. An Indian Express investigation published last month found that two of the election commission's three members had formally objected at least 14 times to key SIR decisions taken by Chief Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Opposition politicians and critics accuse Kumar, a Modi government appointee, of acting at the behest of the BJP and demand an independent inquiry into the commission's decisions during his tenure. Bloomberg reports the concern that eligible voters could also be struck off the rolls, potentially affecting election outcomes.
On Tuesday, police in New Delhi briefly detained opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders as they tried to march to the election commission office. Gandhi told reporters that the country had been taken over by vote theft.
“The country has been hijacked by Narendra Modi through vote theft.”
On Thursday night, Rajasthan police took Deepak Baliyan, the Cockroach Janta Party's national co-in-charge, from his home in Alwar's Kathumar, according to BBC reporting. Party co-founder Saurav Das wrote that the party was concerned for his safety, and his release was demanded by party spokesperson and Nagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal before police let him go late that night. The Cockroach Janta Party's spokesperson said several other officials and activists in Rajasthan had also been placed under house arrest.
Neha Bora, a 29-year-old activist with more than one million Instagram followers, has become a prominent face of the unrest after police detained her several times while she jumped barricades at the protest site in the capital. She showed her bruises on Instagram over the weekend and vowed to keep protesting.
“Tomorrow we will march again”
Stand-up comic Brijesh Jha posted a parody video on 29 September alleging that Gyanesh Kumar had disenfranchised millions of voters at the behest of the BJP, and it drew 1.7 million views. Meta, which owns Instagram, removed the video two days later, citing 'local laws' without further explanation. Jha told Al Jazeera that he felt helpless after losing his vote, which he described as the only thing he had in the country.
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Police cancelled trains to Delhi and suspended mass transit ahead of a Saturday rally at Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation of election commission chief Gyanesh Kumar. The voter-roll revision has removed more than 130 million names.
AI text based on reports by AP NEWS, The New York Times, BBC and other publishers. Changed .