Riot vehicles surround Delhi rally site as opposition demands India's election chief resign over voter-list purge

Riot control vehicles and security personnel armed with batons and shields surrounded the Ramlila Maidan in central New Delhi on Sunday ahead of a mass opposition rally demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar.

Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi led a march of roughly 1.5 kilometres from central Delhi to the designated rally ground, with opposition parties and youth-led groups expecting hundreds of thousands of participants.

At the centre of the dispute is a revision of voter lists that removed more than 130 million names — a figure exceeding the population of Japan. Of those, 28 million were recorded as deceased, 63 million as having relocated, and 30 million could not be traced. Opposition parties allege the deletions disproportionately affect Muslim voters and other minorities unlikely to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party; the Election Commission and the BJP reject those claims.

The protests have continued near-daily since last month, triggered by an Indian Express report in September that two of Kumar's deputies had raised internal concerns about the revision procedures, registration processes and digital systems.

Delhi Traffic Police said large crowd management measures and traffic diversions were being implemented as required.

Analysts describe the youth protests and growing opposition support as the worst political crisis for Modi since he came to power in 2014, though his government remains stable and the next general election is not due until 2029.