Tens of thousands protest against Narendra Modi regime in Delhi

Led by Congress party, India’s opposition alliance channels anger over removal of 130 million names from voter roll

Thousands of opposition supporters have gathered in Delhi as protests against the Narendra Modi government continue to gather momentum.

Led by the Congress party, India’s opposition alliance has brought together supporters from across the country, amid growing anger over a large-scale revision of the country’s voter roll that has seen 130 million names erased.

Opposition leaders have alleged the process gives Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) an electoral advantage, and have called for the resignation and impeachment of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar. The BJP has denied the claims.

Addressing tens of thousands of party workers and supporters, the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said Kumar had “carried out the biggest crime. He has tried to silence the voice of people, strangulate our country.”

Gandhi said the opposition, united under the acronym India (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), would not let “democracy be finished in the country” and warned Modi: “You can’t run anywhere.”

The protest was one of the largest shows of opposition strength in years, taking place amid a wider resurgence of anti-government dissent which has been systematically crushed over the 12 years of the Modi regime.

The biggest challenge to the regime has come from youth-led protests that erupted over the summer – led by a movement that began satirically calling itself the “Cockroaches” – and forced the resignation of one of Modi’s cabinet ministers. Cockroach-led protests hit the streets again last month, also in opposition to the revision of the electoral rolls known as special intensive revision (SIR).

The opposition, in particular the Congress party, has become emboldened in the wake of the youth mobilisation. However, a significant trust deficit remains between the establishment opposition parties and the Cockroach movement. On Sunday, while Cockroach leaders had extended their support to the opposition rally, they did not attend themselves.

Congress leaders had publicly predicted that a million people would attend the rally, but in the end the numbers were in the tens of thousands and empty seats were visible in the protest arena.

The somewhat lacklustre turnout demonstrated the challenge still faced by Congress and its opposition allies in being seen as a formidable and viable challenger to the Modi government.

The opposition, led by Gandhi, has lost the last three general elections to the BJP as the parties have widely failed to counter the BJP’s muscular Hindu nationalist rhetoric. The Modi government has systematically gone after political opponents, leaving little space for dissent.

The majority of those gathered at the protest site on Sunday were party workers and organisers who had been bussed in, and there was very little evidence of a mobilisation of the young people who have been participating in the Cockroach-led protests. According to the opposition, many of their buses were stopped from entering Delhi by police barricades.