NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge Thursday (Oct 15) to the country’s contentious voter-roll revision, as opposition parties seek to halt the exercise and scrutinise the conduct of the top election official following days of protests and mass detentions.
It will also consider separate cases over alleged police brutality, mass detentions and sweeping security restrictions during a week of protests in New Delhi. The petitions also concern the detention of lawyers and journalists, metro station and train disruptions and internet shutdown as authorities locked down parts of the capital over the weekend.
The court has asked a senior Delhi Police officer to appear and respond to allegations that women journalists were harassed while covering the demonstrations.
Thursday’s hearing, which was postponed from Tuesday after a judge fell ill, comes as demonstrators continue to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke has called for fresh demonstrations in Delhi on Oct. 16, after two of the youth-led movement’s leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were arrested and sent to jail for five days Wednesday for trespassing at Jantar Mantar, a site recently removed from the list of designated protest venues.
The two were seen waving the Indian tricolour and climbing over barricades to enter the site.
"We will wave the flag to show that doing so is not a crime. Those who cannot come to Delhi should organise marches in their own cities,” Dipke said in a post on X.
The unrest has been sparked by a late-September investigation by the Indian Express alleging that Kumar disregarded objections raised by the other two election commissioners over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
The exercise, launched last year to verify voter eligibility, has resulted in more than 130 million names being excluded from draft lists, raising concerns among opposition parties that eligible voters are being disenfranchised.
The Election Commission has rejected allegations of wrongdoing, saying the revision is intended to remove duplicate, deceased and ineligible voters.
Opposition parties have called for an independent investigation into the deletions, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has accused them of attempting to undermine democratic institutions following electoral defeats.
The dispute comes ahead of key state elections next year, including in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, raising the political stakes for Modi’s government as protesters continue to demand greater accountability from election authorities.
Modi hasn’t publicly commented on the latest protests. Top leaders from his Bharatiya Janata Party have defended the voter-roll revision and accused opposition parties of attempting to undermine democratic institutions. - Bloomberg
