Hyderabad protest calls for election chief’s resignation and end to voter-roll revision
About 100 demonstrators gathered in Hyderabad to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and an end to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Organisers alleged that the process could remove voters, while also seeking a system for appointing the election chief that includes the Chief Justice of India.
Around 100 people gathered in Hyderabad on Saturday to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the withdrawal of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The protest took place at Dharna Chowk in Indira Park and was organised by 12 groups, including the Telangana unit of the Cockroach Janta Party and the Telangana People’s Front. Demonstrators said the revision could exclude large sections of voters from electoral rolls.
The protesters raised three demands: Mr Kumar’s resignation, a process for selecting the Chief Election Commissioner that includes the Chief Justice of India, and the scrapping of the SIR exercise. Speakers also alleged that the revision was an indirect route to a National Register of Citizens. The claims were made amid a wider national dispute over deletions from electoral rolls.
Protesters said 13 crore names had been excluded from draft rolls across states and Union territories. The source material does not provide an independent verification of that figure or a response from the Election Commission. M.V.
Reddy of the Telangana People’s Front described the alleged deletions as unprecedented. Sunita Regunta of the National Alliance of People’s Movements said the process was particularly difficult for people without the resources to navigate it. Other speakers raised concerns about possible links between voter records and other government databases.
Cybersecurity activist Srinivas Kodali questioned how identities could be reliably established when Aadhaar had not been created for everyone and said the issue could have wider implications in the context of the coming Census. The gathering began with a Hindi rendition of “Bella Ciao”, and Akunuri Murali, a former Telangana Education Commission chairperson, led participants in reading the Constitution’s Preamble. Organisers said mobilisation against the revision should continue even if the election commissioner resigned.
This independently written report is based on information supplied by the named publisher. Vertrix News has not independently verified the source report.