Police detained student organizers during India’s youth-led campaign against a voter-roll review, while women activists described harassment as Delhi prepares to resolve millions of draft-roll omissions.
Delhi’s chief electoral officer said about 4.77 million names from a previous list of roughly 14.5 million were absent from the capital’s draft roll. Those omissions are subject to claims and objections; they are not final removals.
The youth-led “Cockroach” campaign is demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, arguing that the review risks excluding eligible voters. The Election Commission of India (ECI) says its Special Intensive Revision is intended to remove entries for people who have died or moved permanently, along with duplicate entries and voters it cannot locate. It says people omitted from draft rolls can challenge their exclusion.
In a Sept. 1 compilation, The Indian Express reported more than 130 million names omitted from draft rolls across 30 states and union territories. That tally concerns draft lists, not final exclusions.
Scroll reported that police detained All India Students’ Association president Neha Bora during an Oct. 10 march in New Delhi. DW’s profile says Bora uses they/them pronouns.
The Indian Express reported that police removed All India Students’ Federation organizer Shrawani Buwa from a train at Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh, on Oct. 9 as her group traveled from Pune toward Delhi. Police returned the group to Pune, where they were released Oct. 10, the newspaper reported.
Navkiran Natt, an activist associated with the 2020-21 farmers’ protests, told DW she searched Delhi for a place to demonstrate on Oct. 10. Indian Youth Congress member and author Gurmehar Kaur told DW she could use party resources to assist demonstrators regardless of their political loyalties.
Natt told DW that abuse directed at women protest leaders often targets their sexuality. Kaur described threats and humiliation that can follow public attention. DW reported that Delhi officials denied allegations of police manhandling women protesters; Bora disputed the officials’ account.
In a Sept. 26 announcement, the ECI extended the deadline to file claims and objections to Oct. 30 and the deadline to resolve them to Nov. 30. The Delhi chief electoral officer’s Sept. 27 revised schedule sets publication of the final roll for Dec. 4.
