Stopped on Parliament Street: opposition MPs detained in march for poll chief's exit

The march lasted about a kilometre. It carried, in that short distance, the largest question in Indian democracy: who gets to remain a voter.

On Tuesday, top leaders of the INDIA opposition alliance set out from the Parliament House complex in New Delhi towards the Election Commission headquarters at Patel Chowk, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Police stopped the procession on Parliament Street near the NITI Aayog office, behind barricades. The MPs, led by Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra among them, sat down on the road and raised slogans accusing the Commission of acting for the ruling party. Several lawmakers were detained by Delhi Police and released soon after, agency reports said. Security around the Commission's headquarters had been tightened since Friday, as opposition parties, student groups and the youth movement that calls itself Cockroach began near-daily demonstrations.

The opposition's case is that the revision, begun in Bihar last year and since expanded to most states and Union territories, demands documents that ordinary citizens struggle to produce, and risks cutting rolls sharply. Critics cite Commission data suggesting shrinkage of as much as 30 per cent in some regions. Mr Kharge, speaking as the march began, accused the government of trying to eliminate the adult franchise won at independence and called the Chief Election Commissioner a puppet of the government. The Commission and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party deny any manipulation. The Commission says the statutory registration form itself has not been changed and that the revision exists to remove duplicate, deceased and ineligible entries and to protect electoral integrity. It has also directed officials to restore eligible voters who were inadvertently left out.

The courts are now inside the argument. On Monday, the Supreme Court said it had not approved any modified version of the voter-registration form and indicated it would examine the records behind the changes. It has also issued notice to the Commission on petitions against decisions taken during the revision, giving it a week to respond. A former judge of the court has publicly warned that the right to vote is in peril; protesters in Delhi this week wrapped themselves in white sheets to stand for voters they say were killed on paper.

Detention, by itself, proves nothing against anyone. But a republic should notice the shape of the scene: elected representatives of the opposition sitting on the tarmac outside barricades, asking the umpire of elections to quit, while the umpire answers through press notes. The Commission's authority does not come from the barricades in front of it. It comes from every citizen believing their name will be there on polling day. That belief is now the thing on the road.