Mass protest planned in New Delhi over voters' list changes

NEW DELHI: Indian security personnel carrying batons and shields and accompanied by riot control vehicles surrounded the site of ​a planned opposition protest in Delhi ​on Sunday that is set to demand the resignation of the country's election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists.
Authorities warned of traffic diversions ahead of the protest march and rally that will be led by Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi. 
The opposition says it expects hundreds of thousands of people to participate in what it says will be a major ⁠challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Opposition parties, student organisations and ⁠the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party have held near-daily demonstrations since last month demanding that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar step down over the voter list revision that critics say favour the BJP.
The Election Commission has denied favouring any party ‌and said wrongly deleted voters can re-enrol, while the ​BJP has accused rivals of trying ⁠to undermine democracy by wrongly questioning legitimate electoral processes.
Analysts say the youth ​protests, and growing support for the opposition, ‌form the worst crisis for Modi since he came to power in 2014. But his government remains stable and the next general election is ​not due until 2029.
The opposition parties have announced they will hold a nearly 1.5 km (1 mile) march on Sunday from Central Delhi to the Ramlila Maidan, a ground that is the designated site for their protest rally.
Visuals from news agency ANI showed riot control vehicles and dozens of security personnel armed with batons and ‌shields outside the rally venue, where announcements were being made urging people to ensure smooth traffic movement ​and cooperate with police officials.
Delhi Traffic Police said 'a large gathering' was expected at the venue, and traffic ​regulations ‌and ⁠diversions would be implemented 'as required'.
'People have started coming to participate in this rally...we have ensured proper arrangements at the venue, and arrangements are also planned on the route of the march that will happen in ​a few hours from now,' senior police officer Rohit Rajbir told ANI.
The ⁠protests demanding Kumar's ​resignation erupted after The Indian Express newspaper reported in September that his two deputies had raised several concerns internally about voter list revisions, registration procedures, and digital systems.
The change, which began last year, removed over 130 million names - more than the population of Japan - from voter lists, including 28 million who ​died, 63 million who relocated, and 30 million who could not be traced.
Opposition ​parties allege the deletions disproportionately affect Muslim voters and other minorities, who are unlikely to support the Hindu nationalist ruling party - allegations the poll panel and BJP reject

The event, organized by India’s largest opposition political party, the Indian National Congress, will be the latest in a string of large protests to ripple through New Delhi since this summer.

The demonstrators have marched under different banners, with separate leaders and demands. But they have all expressed unhappiness with Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which has led India since 2014, and its initiative to update India’s voter rolls. The protesters have accused Modi of “vote theft,” claiming that his party is using its powers to try to rig the rolls in its favor.

“BJP, Modi — all are trying to demolish our rights, our constitution,” said Mohammed Shamin, 40, a private tutor from Delhi who planned to attend. As he mingled among the several hundred people who had started to gather at the demonstration site in central New Delhi on Saturday evening, Shamin said he was optimistic that their presence would make a difference.

“Every cloud has a silver lining,” he added, gesturing to the early arrivals and the large empty field behind them that organizers expected would be crammed by morning with people from all over India.

Organizers have said they expect as many as 1 million people to attend, but police officials have provided a much lower estimate of 50,000. Laborers worked through the night Saturday to prepare the open-air venue, which was still waterlogged from heavy rain earlier in the week.

The revision of India’s voter rolls began last year in what the government has described as a routine effort to eliminate duplicates, dead people and other discrepancies. It has amounted to a sweeping overhaul, with more than 130 million names expunged so far.

Millions of people have said they were included in the purge by mistake, leading critics of Modi and the BJP to accuse him of tampering with India’s electoral system and undermining the fundamental mechanism of its democracy before elections in several large states next year.

Modi and his allies in the BJP say their political opponents are looking for an excuse to foment unrest, which began in force in July under the banner of the Generation Z-led “Cockroach” movement. The Cockroach Janta Party — named as a satirical response to a comment from India’s chief justice about “youngsters like cockroaches who don’t get any employment” — first mobilized young people across India to protest the government’s mishandling of important student entrance exams.

More recent protests have focused on the voter rolls and have largely been led not by the Cockroach movement, but by the Congress party and its leader, Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India’s most illustrious political dynasty.

Sudhanshu Trivedi, the national spokesperson for the BJP, on Saturday called the Congress party’s efforts a failed attempt “to create anarchy in India.” The BJP has called its own counterprotest Sunday and vowed to combat what it called “the falsehoods, conspiracies and unrest engineered by a desperate opposition.”

Security forces and police officers responded to the earlier protests by locking down the heart of New Delhi, detaining protest leaders and rounding up demonstrators by the thousands. Delhi police have assigned thousands of personnel to cover Sunday’s event.