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Protests against electoral fraud continue in India
Thousands of protesters marched to the headquarters of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in Delhi and to other government offices in several cities across India on Friday, October 23, as part of the ongoing nationwide demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud and manipulations.
Protesters in Delhi carrying the national flag shouted slogans against the election fraud and the attacks on people’s right to vote, right to protest, and basic democracy in the country. They were stopped by the security forces deployed in large numbers who had barricaded all the routes leading to the ECI office hours before the protests began. Some of the protesters were also detained.
Similar protests were held across different parts of the country on Friday and earlier this week. The protests in Delhi were called by People Against SIR, a group of over 300 organizations formed recently to coordinate ongoing protests. The group includes major trade and farmers unions, student and youth movements, and other sections of civil society.
A large number of farmers also participated in the protests which have been ongoing since the beginning of the month and are expected to intensify in the coming days as all opposition parties and civil society groups have already called for a large demonstration in Delhi on November 1 over the failure of the government to respond to their demands so far.
The march on Friday was converted to a public meeting after it was stopped by the security forces. Several people addressed the protesters, pointing out the complete disregard to the basic rights of citizens by the Narendra Modi-led government.
Some of them also questioned the legitimacy of the ultra-right-wing government, claiming it was a result of a stolen mandate.
Undeclared emergency
The Narendra Modi government has imposed an undeclared emergency in the country by making it an offense to wave the national flag, arresting activists, and letting the police and pro-regime thugs repeatedly attack protesters, women and journalists, People Against SIR said in a press release on Thursday.
The failure of the constitutional institutions, including the Supreme Court of India to intervene against the blatant misuse of state power and their failure to protect the basic rights of the people confirms the state of democracy in the country, it underlined.
Two leaders of the CJP were sent to seven days of judicial custody after they tried to unfurl the national flag in central Delhi last week in an attempt to resist the government’s clampdown on the protesters.
Hundreds of people, mostly young activists, have been detained, and beaten by the security forces since the beginning of the protests. Several of the women protesters and journalists have complained about police and pro-government thugs molesting and beating them during the protests.
The government has repeatedly used sections of the law to restrict movement and barricaded the central parts of the capital city for weeks now.
India cannot be allowed to become a police state
The protesters decried the restrictions imposed by the government against protests in the capital and other places, calling it a violation of the right to peaceful protest. They announced that they will not let India become a “police state.”
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is an ongoing process initiated by the ECI to revise the electoral rolls in the country. The opposition has alleged that the process was illegal and was initiated with the intention to manipulate elections to benefit the ruling ultra-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power since 2014.
Several reports in the local newspapers have also claimed the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar violated established legal procedures and made changes in the SIR process arbitrarily on several occasions to benefit the ruling party.
Over 130 million voters, around 14% of all registered electorates in the country as per the 2024 data, have been removed from India’s decentralized electoral rolls since the process began last year. In some states a quarter to half of all electorates were removed.
The number is significant especially given the fact that in India’s First Past the Post system, the victory margins in elections are often very small.
Some have claimed that many of the voters removed from the roll were from religious minority communities or sections of the working class which have generally voted against the BJP.
One of the major demands of the ongoing protests is the removal of the SIR process altogether. Protesters have also demanded the removal of the sitting CEC and for legal action to be taken against him, as well as the re-inclusion of all the people whose names have been removed from the electoral rolls.
