Congress-led alliance rallies tens of thousands in Delhi over voter-roll revision

A million-person forecast met a turnout marked by empty seats

The Congress-led Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, which uses the acronym India, rallied tens of thousands of supporters in a Delhi march on Sunday as protests against Narendra Modi’s government continued to gather momentum. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi addressed the gathering, whose central focus was the special intensive revision, or SIR, of India’s voter roll. The photograph caption said Gandhi and fellow Congress leaders waved at supporters. The opposition says the revision erased 130 million names and gave the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party an electoral advantage; the BJP denies those claims.

The Guardian reported that the dispute over SIR first emerged last year and recently became a national political dispute after an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper revealed irregularities and discord within the Election Commission over its implementation. The outlet reported that millions of allegedly eligible voters had discovered their names were left off the electoral rolls and that Muslims and minorities were disproportionately targeted. Human Rights Watch said this week that the accusations raised “serious questions about the fairness of future Indian elections.”

Opposition leaders called for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation and impeachment. Addressing party workers and supporters, Gandhi said Kumar had “carried out the biggest crime. He has tried to silence the voice of people, strangulate our country.” Gandhi said the alliance would not let “democracy be finished in the country” and warned Modi: “You can’t run anywhere.”

Congress leaders had predicted that a million people would attend, but turnout was in the tens of thousands and empty seats were visible in the protest arena. The Guardian reported that most people at the site were party workers and organizers who had been bussed in, with little evidence of the younger crowd that had joined the Cockroach-led protests. The opposition said police barricades had stopped many of its buses from entering Delhi.

Supporters of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance gathered at the rally under the slogan “Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao,” which translates to “save votes, save the country.” People came from across the country, but some attendees said they were not aligned with any opposition party. Goa restaurant owner Shalini said she was there “not for the opposition but because I am against the BJP and how they are trying to remove any avenue of dissent in this country. I’m not particularly for any opposition party.”

Shalini said many questions remained about the opposition’s viability and support, but she sensed a “groundswell of dissatisfaction with the BJP and the opposition is cashing in on it – good for them.” Arwind Chaudhery, 48, said he was not aligned with any party. “I am here because SIR has undermined our democracy and the situation has got so bad, it is beyond repair or rectification,” he said. “So it is natural that people will be driven out to protest and that is a ray of hope.”

The Guardian said the biggest challenge to the Modi government had come from youth-led protests that erupted over the summer. The protests were led by a movement that began satirically calling itself the “Cockroaches” and forced the resignation of one of Modi’s cabinet ministers. The movement returned to the streets last month, again opposing SIR. Cockroach leaders extended their support to Sunday’s opposition rally but did not attend. The Guardian said Congress had become emboldened following the youth mobilization but still faced a significant trust deficit with the movement.

The Guardian described the gathering as one of the largest shows of opposition strength in years and said it took place amid a wider resurgence of anti-government dissent that had been “systematically crushed” over the 12 years of the Modi government. The outlet said the Modi government had “systematically gone after political opponents, leaving little space for dissent.”

The outlet also said the opposition, led by Gandhi, had lost the last three general elections to the BJP and that the parties had widely failed to counter the BJP’s “muscular Hindu nationalist rhetoric.” It described the turnout as evidence that Congress and its allies still faced a challenge in being seen as a viable challenger to the government.

Party president JP Nadda said Sunday’s rally would be the “nail in the coffin” for the opposition alliance. He said the protest was “not an act of respect for democracy. It is a calculated conspiracy to plunge the nation into anarchy, all in the name of democracy.” The Guardian reported that the BJP had sought to dismiss the opposition protests.

Those claims remained unresolved in The Guardian’s report: the opposition said SIR had erased 130 million names and given the BJP an electoral advantage, while the BJP denied the allegations. The demands for Kumar’s resignation and impeachment were central issues raised at the rally; attendance was substantial but lower than the alliance’s own forecast.