The INDIA bloc held a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan demanding CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation over alleged irregularities in the SIR process.
BJP MP Sambit Patra countered the allegations and questioned the bloc’s claim of gathering 10 lakh people.
Some rally participants expressed support for the protest, with people travelling from other states.
The INDIA Bloc held a mega rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged discrepancies in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. The rally was attended by several top Opposition leaders from the bloc, including Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and others.
From the stage at Ramlila Maidan, Opposition leaders called for Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, claiming that ‘vote chori’ had been taking place in the country for years.
"For years, vote theft has been happening in this country. Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections—in all these elections, vote theft has occurred. Votes have been stolen through EVMs and by deleting and adding names to voter lists," Gandhi said at the rally.
BJP Counters Opposition Rally
In response to the Opposition rally, the BJP deployed its national spokesperson and MP Sambit Patra to counter the allegations levelled by INDIA Bloc leaders.
Patra questioned the Opposition's claim that 10 lakh people had attended the rally, saying that despite bringing together several parties, the bloc had failed to draw such a large crowd.
“Where were the 10 lakh people? Show us. No one becomes a leader or Prime Minister through such tricks. PM doesn't just mean Prime Minister. P stands for Paseena (sweat) and M stands for Mehnat (hard work). A Prime Minister is made through sweat and hard work. Despite bringing together so many parties and flags, they could not manage to gather 10 lakh people," Patra said at a press conference.
Patra also took aim at Gandhi’s earlier description of the protesters as ‘Shiv Ji Ki Barat’, calling the gathering a spectacle of chaos.
“Rahul Gandhi ji, you are neither Shiv nor is the chaos you want to plunge India into any 'Shiv Ji Ki Baraat'. This is not Shiv Ji's Baraat. This is nothing but a spectacle of chaos," the BJP MP said.
People On Ground React
Some participants at the rally expressed support for the Opposition's protest, praising its scale and organisation.
“I had come here to join the march. It was grand. I haven’t seen anything of this scale yet … That’s how a party organises a protest … so many people,” The Indian Express quoted an IT professional from Gurugram as saying.
People from other states also travelled to Delhi to show their support for the rally. The Indian Express quoted a man who claimed that around 15,000 people had come from Telangana to participate in the protest.
“We arrived in the morning by train to show our support. We won’t leave the city unless Rahul Gandhi asks us to. The SIR process cost so many people their votes. The fight has just started,” he told the newspaper.
