India's opposition parties on Sunday staged fresh protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a controversial revision of voter lists, intensifying their campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi in a rally organised by the opposition INDIA bloc, chanting slogans against the central government's policies and calling for the protection of democracy.
Led by Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition Congress party, the protesters were joined by supporters of the youth-led "Cockroach" movement. Several opposition parties in the alliance mobilised their supporters from different states for the demonstration.
The rally came weeks after police cracked down on protesters in the capital.
The demonstrators assembled at Ramlila Maidan after police removed Jantar Mantar, a historic observatory that had long served as the capital's main protest venue, from the list of officially designated sites for demonstrations last month.
Authorities deployed thousands of police and paramilitary personnel and maintained extensive surveillance during the rally. More than 200 CCTV cameras, drones and body-worn cameras were used at the venue and along the protest route, officials said.
The controversy centres on an ongoing revision of voter lists that has removed more than 130 million names since last year.
Opposition parties and rights groups have alleged that the exercise is politically motivated, could deprive millions of people of their voting rights and has disproportionately affected minority communities, particularly Muslims.
The Election Commission and Modi's government have rejected the allegations, saying the revision is aimed at removing duplicate and ineligible entries from the electoral rolls.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday said the allegations surrounding the voter list revision raised serious concerns about the fairness of future elections in India.
Elaine Pearson, the organisation's Asia director, called on the authorities to immediately scrap the process, saying it had deprived some of the country's most marginalised people of their voting rights and access to other government services.
The demand for Kumar's resignation has become a major rallying point for opposition parties and supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party, who are seeking to challenge Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, have accused the ruling BJP of systematic manipulation of the electoral process, describing it as "vote chori", or vote theft.
Modi has not publicly commented on the latest protests. However, some leaders of his party have branded the demonstrators as "anarchists" and alleged, without providing evidence, that foreign powers were supporting them.
In July, protests organised by the youth-led "Cockroach" movement forced Modi's education minister to resign, marking a rare setback for the prime minister, who has been in power for more than 12 years.
The movement began as an online satirical campaign earlier this summer after India's chief justice compared unemployed young people to parasites.
Suresh Sharma, a protester from the northern state of Haryana, said India's system needed reforms as democracy was being undermined.
Calling for the cancellation of the voter list revision, he demanded the resignation and arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.