Central Delhi was sealed off on Saturday to prevent a mass protest demanding the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner. Tens of thousands of security personnel were deployed, metro stations were shut, trains were cancelled and mobile internet was suspended. Organisers say thousands of people have been detained across the country.
Indian authorities placed central New Delhi under heavy restrictions on Saturday, October 10, to stop a youth-led protest demanding the resignation of the country’s chief election commissioner, according to reports by Al Jazeera and The Hindu.
What the Protest Is About
The rally was called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-based political movement, together with student and Left organisations.
They are demanding:
- the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar
- the rollback of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls
The revision has removed more than 130 million names from voter lists. About 969 million people were eligible to vote in the 2024 general election.
The Restrictions
Figures for the scale of the operation differ between sources.
| Measure | The Hindu | Al Jazeera / ANI |
|---|---|---|
| Security personnel | Over 23,000 | Nearly 30,000 |
| Metro stations shut | 45 | 57 (ANI); “more than 50” |
Authorities also:
- cancelled long-distance trains into the capital
- suspended mobile internet within 4km of the protest area, ANI reported
- blocked roads to the site with several layers of metal barricades
India’s Supreme Court said on Friday that some trains must still run.
Why Police Refused Permission
Police did not authorise the rally at Jantar Mantar, the site normally designated for protests. They said the request was not made in time and that the CJP had broken undertakings given at earlier protests.
They warned that anyone violating the ban would face a forceful response.
What Organisers Say
“The dictator would rather shut down the entire national capital and inconvenience millions of citizens than allow a peaceful protest at a designated protest site,” CJP chief Abhijeet Dipke said on X.
The CJP says at least 10,000 people have been detained across the country, including protesters travelling to Delhi by train.
“You can detain the people, you cannot detain the movement,” said Neha Bora, national president of the All India Students’ Association.
What the Election Commission Says
The Election Commission says the revision removes duplicate and ineligible voters and is meant to prevent “foreign illegal immigrants” from voting.
Critics say it has disproportionately affected marginalised and minority communities, and that it favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The commission and the BJP deny that. The BJP says the opposition is misleading the country because it cannot win elections.
How It Escalated
The protests grew after the Indian Express reported that Kumar’s two fellow commissioners had formally raised concerns at least 14 times in ten months about the revision.
The CJP began in May as online political satire and has since built a large following among young Indians. Protests it led in July were followed by the resignation of the education minister over exam paper leaks.
State elections are due in early 2027, including in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
Image: A Delhi Police barricade in New Delhi (file photo, not from this week). Photo by Sidheeq via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
