India's opposition parties rallied at Ramlila Maidan in central Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of the country's chief election commissioner, escalating a confrontation over a voter-roll revision that has removed 130 million names from draft electoral rolls.

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition Congress party, arrived in an open-top jeep alongside other opposition leaders, and the youth-led pressure group Cockroach Janta Party pledged its support. Thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed around the ground, and organisers said parties from across the alliance had brought cadres from their home states.

The rally was called by the INDIA bloc, a coalition of opposition parties formed in 2023 to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

The dispute

The Election Commission of India says the exercise, known as the Special Intensive Revision, is meant to update the rolls by removing people who have died or moved away. Opposition parties say it could benefit the BJP by removing eligible voters, and accuse the commission and the party of "vote chori" — vote theft. Both deny the allegations.

The row intensified in September when The Indian Express reported that the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, had made key decisions about the exercise without the agreement of the two other election commissioners, who had raised objections on more than a dozen occasions. The commission said differences of opinion were normal in any institution and did not affect its work.

On Saturday, leaders of the INDIA bloc staged a symbolic impeachment of Kumar at the Delhi residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. The mock session, presided over by former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, saw leaders accuse the election chief of "conspiring to steal elections" and of deliberately removing 130 million voters.

Kharge, who is also leader of the opposition in parliament's upper house, moved a symbolic motion seeking Kumar's removal, accusing him of undermining the electoral process and committing an act of "treason against the nation and the Constitution of India". The proceedings had no legal standing: under Indian law the chief election commissioner can only be removed through a formal parliamentary process.

Modi's response

Modi has not directly commented on the mock impeachment. Speaking at a public rally on Friday, he said that "some people" wanted to create chaos across the country so that he could be defamed. On Saturday, addressing a separate rally, he accused opposition parties of "abandoning their duty" and "tearing apart the dignity and boundaries of the constitution".

The prime minister's allies have framed the revision as routine housekeeping. Critics say the numbers are too large for that: the process has removed more than 130 million names since last year, and Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that the accusations raise "serious questions about the fairness of future Indian elections".

"The authorities should immediately scrap the voter roll revision process," the group said, arguing that it has denied India's most marginalised people their right to vote.

A movement, not just a party

Sunday's protest is the latest in a series that has widened beyond the traditional opposition parties. The "Cockroach" movement — a youth-led grouping whose name mocks the way its members say they are treated by the government — has been central to the recent demonstrations, and its presence has changed the character of the protests.

The venue itself is part of the story. Protesters gathered at Ramlila Maidan after police last month withdrew Jantar Mantar from the list of officially designated demonstration sites; the historic observatory had long been the capital's main protest ground.

Security was heavy. Officials said thousands of police and paramilitary soldiers were deployed and that surveillance included more than 200 CCTV cameras, drones and body-worn cameras at the venue and along the route.

The rally also follows a police crackdown on protesters in New Delhi weeks ago, and last month's march led by Gandhi from Connaught Place to the Supreme Court, which drew tens of thousands. "The march was just the trailer," a party leader told the BBC at the time. "Sunday's rally will be several times bigger than that."

Gandhi framed the protest as a defence of the republic. Ahead of the rally he said the demonstrations were against "the demolition of Indian democracy".

What comes next

The legal position has not changed: the commission has rejected the allegations, the government has defended the revision, and a symbolic impeachment cannot remove an election commissioner. What the opposition is building instead is a public case, and a crowd large enough to keep the issue alive through the winter.

That matters beyond Delhi. India's next national vote will be administered by the same commission, and the dispute has already drawn international scrutiny. How the revision is completed — and how many people end up back on the rolls — will shape how the result is received.

The same questions about who counts, and who is trusted to count them, are being fought out elsewhere: US courts have been weighing challenges to ballot handling and orders against intimidating election officials, while American voters head into early voting of their own.