Supreme Court intervention

The Supreme Court of India stepped into the dispute over the Special Intensive Revision on 5 October 2026, issuing formal notices to the Union government, the Election Commission of India, and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The court acted on urgent petitions that challenged the deletion of voter records and sought an independent investigation into Kumar's conduct. Lawyer Menaka Guruswamy told the court that voter removals of this magnitude compromised democratic integrity, while Cockroach Janata Party spokesperson Sourav Das publicly questioned the legal authority behind the roll revisions. Chief Justice Surya Kant explicitly rejected claims that the judiciary had sanctioned changes to Form 6, the statutory form used for voter enrollment.

“We have not approved any modified Form 6. Let that be clear. Once the record is produced, we want to see who altered it.”

Internal dissent and roll deletions

The dispute centers on an administrative verification exercise that began in 2025 across multiple territories, including Delhi, Bihar, and West Bengal. While the election authority defended the campaign as a technical cleanup to eliminate duplicate, deceased, and ineligible entries, the process resulted in the removal of 130 million names, accounting for over 13% of the total electorate. An investigation by the Indian Express revealed that two election commissioners had submitted formal written objections against altering Form 6 without statutory amendments to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The Election Commission had claimed in a press release on 26 September 2026 that its revised declaration carried judicial approval, a statement directly contradicted by the Supreme Court during Monday's proceedings. Opposition parties asserted that the deletions targeted demographics traditionally opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

Escalating street mobilisations

Demonstrations continued for a fourth straight day on 5 October 2026, spreading across New Delhi and Mumbai under the leadership of student associations, opposition alliances, and the youth-led Cockroach movement. The Cockroach movement, which previously forced the resignation of the Union education minister through mass protests in July 2026, staged a rally in Mumbai on 2 October 2026 before launching a five-day mobilization campaign in the capital. Security forces detained more than 1,500 demonstrators over the four-day period, deployed barricades in central Delhi, and restricted internet connectivity in selected zones. A coalition of opposition parties led by the Congress party scheduled a coordinated nationwide march to the Election Commission headquarters in New Delhi for 6 October 2026.

Allegations against law enforcement

Public unrest intensified following allegations of police misconduct during demonstrations in central Delhi. Three female journalists and an activist accused male police officers of sexual molestation while covering the detention of student leader Neha Bora and political activists Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan on 3 October 2026 near Kerala House. One journalist stated that an officer touched her inappropriately when she questioned why male personnel were detaining a female student without female officers present. After police acknowledged the complaints without registering formal cases, dozens of journalists initiated a sit-in protest on 5 October 2026, leading to additional police detentions. Both the Election Commission and the ruling party rejected claims of electoral wrongdoing.