INDIA bloc MPs, including Leaders of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, were stopped by police on Tuesday while marching from Parliament towards the Election Commission headquarters, after which they staged a sit-in demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The MPs were stopped near the NITI Aayog office on the stretch between NITI Aayog and Akashvani Bhavan leading towards Nirvachan Sadan. They then sat on the road in protest.
Opposition MPs carried cutouts depicting Kumar in an RSS uniform and raised slogans including “BJP hai CEC hai”, “Vote chor, gaddi chhod” and “Democracy not for sale”. Gandhi later posted on X: “Gyanesh it’s done bro. Time to resign.”
TMC leaders Abhishek Banerjee and Derek O’Brien, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and CPI(M) leader John Brittas were among those who took part in the march. Heavy security and barricades had been deployed around Parliament and the Election Commission headquarters ahead of the protest.
The opposition has been demanding Kumar’s resignation over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and reports of differences within the three-member Election Commission.
The protest came a day after the Supreme Court, while hearing petitions concerning the functioning of the Election Commission and changes to voter enrolment procedures, clarified that it had not approved any modified version of Form 6, the statutory application used for voter registration.
The court said it would examine the Election Commission’s records to determine whether changes had been made to the form and who had authorised them. It also declined to pass an interim order suspending Kumar, saying it could not act on allegations without first verifying the facts.
Ahead of Tuesday’s march, opposition MPs cited the Supreme Court’s observations on Form 6 to renew their demand for Kumar’s resignation. Congress MP Imran Masood alleged that the functioning of the Election Commission had eroded public trust in the institution.
CPI MP P Sandosh Kumar also criticised the Election Commission over the additional declaration attached to Form 6 during the SIR exercise. He alleged that the poll body had given a misleading impression about the Supreme Court’s position on the matter.
The Election Commission has rejected allegations of internal division and maintained that decisions relating to the SIR were taken unanimously. It has also said that Form 6 itself was not amended and that the disputed provision was a separate declaration introduced for the SIR process.
The opposition's march is part of a wider campaign against the Election Commission over the SIR exercise, with INDIA bloc parties demanding greater scrutiny of voter-roll changes and Kumar’s resignation.
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