INDIA bloc plans a 'public impeachment' of CEC Gyanesh Kumar on 30 October

The opposition INDIA bloc will hold a symbolic “public impeachment” of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on 30 October, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said on Saturday night, two days before the alliance’s march on Delhi over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Venugopal said the event would be the place “where the public’s verdict to remove the Vote Chor CEC Gyanesh Kumar will be delivered loud and clear.” He did not say where it would be held. The alliance accuses the Election Commission of wrongly striking voters off the rolls during the SIR and wants the CEC to resign.

The proceeding will be followed on 1 November by a “Dilli Chalo” march that is to end in a rally at Ramlila Maidan. Venugopal said “at least a million concerned citizens will participate.” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, he added, had asked allied parties to keep their leaders and members in Delhi over this period and to “be present in full force.”

“We continued our meetings to take stock of preparations for the INDIA Bloc Mega Rally against Vote Chori on November 1st,” Venugopal wrote on X.

States start counting buses

In Shimla, Congress and Left leaders held a joint press conference to plan Himachal Pradesh’s share of the crowd. “We hope that around 10 lakh people will assemble at the November 1 rally,” said Rajani Patil, the Congress in-charge for the state. “Our target is to take 20,000 people from Himachal Pradesh to Delhi.”

CPI(M) state secretary Sanjay Chauhan said the campaign would run under the slogan “Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao”. Patil had a message for the ruling party too. “The BJP is so worried and agitated that it sees the INDIA bloc everywhere. The coming time will show what happens,” she said.

CPI MP P Sandosh Kumar said his party would bring “at least 15,000 to 20,000 people from our side”.

The row over the date

The BJP has spent the week attacking the choice of 1 November, the anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh violence. “Why November 1, Mr Rahul Gandhi?” BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad asked, accusing the Leader of the Opposition of trying “to rub salt into the wounded sentiments of the Sikh community”. Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini also brought up the riots.

Congress MP Jebi Mather said the date was “a joint decision” of the alliance and that “there’s nothing particular about the date”. Sandosh Kumar called the BJP’s remarks “senseless comments”.

Delhi’s Chamber of Trade and Industry has separately asked Rahul Gandhi to move the rally to after 10 November, warning of losses to markets around Ramlila Maidan in the week of Dhanteras and Diwali. Congress leader Rashid Alvi dismissed the letter. “This is how the BJP operates. It gets such letters written by its own people,” he said. “Why did the police grant permission for the programme on November 1?”

Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel claimed that “Names of 13 crore people have been deleted” from the voter list in the SIR. “The country’s population is continuously increasing, while the number of voters is decreasing,” he said.