Opposition plans march to Rashtrapati Bhavan to seek CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation

The move follows days of protests in Delhi and comes amid heated exchanges between the Opposition and the BJP.

The Opposition plans to march to Rashtrapati Bhavan and meet President Droupadi Murmu on Friday to press for chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, setting the stage for an escalation in an agitation marked by INDIA bloc MPs taking to the streets of Delhi, clashing with police and sparring with the government.

Congress and INDIA bloc supporters as INDIA bloc MPs, including Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, board a bus in Connaught Place before heading towards Rajghat to stage a protest in New Delhi on Thursday. (RAJ K RAJ /HT PHOTO)

On the third day of their stir on Thursday, nearly 200 Opposition lawmakers held a sit-in protest at Rajghat, highlighting what they described as the “hijacking” of the country by Kumar allegedly at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

According to people aware of the matter, INDIA bloc lawmakers plan to march from Parliament to Rashtrapati Bhavan to meet the President over “mass disenfranchisement” through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and seek Kumar’s ouster. The Rashtrapati Bhavan, however, was yet to finalise the Opposition’s appointment with the President, who has been in Himachal Pradesh for three days now, the people said.

HT reached reached to Delhi Police but did not get a comment at the time of going to print.

Protesters Hold Sit-In at Rajghat

The planned march to Rashtrapati Bhavan follows three days of high-octane Opposition protests in the Capital. Thursday’s demonstration began on the same note as Wednesday’s, with the MPs first meeting for an all-vegetarian lunch — this time at Moets in the Outer Circle of Connaught Place.

From there, the MPs, including Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, boarded three buses at around 3:30pm to head to the Mahatma Gandhi memorial. The convoy was flanked by members of the Congress’s Delhi unit, youth and students’ wings and security personnel as the buses made their way through a gridlocked Central Delhi, taking at least 1 hour and 10 minutes to cover the 3.5km distance.

“Around 300 MPs want to hold a peaceful sit-in, but on the first day, we were stopped near the Election Commission’s office. Then on the second day, we were prevented from going to Jantar Mantar, and our people were beaten. The truth is that Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Mohan Bhagwat, and Gyanesh Kumar have hijacked the country through a criminal conspiracy. They have destroyed the Constitution and stolen votes. They will be brought to justice. This is our guarantee, and you will see it happen,” Rahul said in Connaught Place.

Kharge echoed him. “We want to tell the country that the BJP government is snatching away our right to vote. Modi and Shah are snatching away that freedom which great leaders like Gandhiji, Nehru ji, and Sardar Patel ji had won for us,” he said.

The Samajwadi Party (SP), the second-largest constituent of the bloc, which was not part of Wednesday’s protest, also joined the sit-in at Rajghat.

At Rajghat, the lawmakers paid floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi before staging a sit-in till around 6pm. “This is the greatest message we are giving. Mahatma Gandhi led the freedom fight for India. The entire democracy is completely finished by Modi and Shah through Gyanesh Kumar…This is one of the most powerful agitations,” Congress general secretary (Organisation) and KC Venugopal said.

Delhi Police said the situation at Rajghat was “easier” to manage and that INDIA bloc leaders and workers left on their own after some time. No one was detained, while some workers were removed from the spot, a senior police officer said, adding that no major scuffle was reported.

BJP and Congress Trade Accusations

Although Thursday’s demonstration was devoid of the dramatic scenes of Wednesday, when Opposition leaders attempted to march to Jantar Mantar but were stopped by a 5,000-strong police force, triggering an impasse, it escalated the political tussle between the INDIA bloc and the government.

The BJP accused Rahul and Priyanka of misconduct with police personnel during the protest. BJP national media co-convenor Sidharth Yadav alleged that the LoP inappropriately touched a woman police officer and his sister, the Wayanad MP, elbowed another woman officer on Wednesday.

“If someone in this country does not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi-Vadra family, does that mean they have no human rights? If someone in this country does not belong to their elitist culture, does that mean they do not feel pain when they are hurt?” he said. Yadav also accused the Congress of violating the law while claiming to defend the Constitution and said the alleged incidents were contrary to democratic norms.

Union minister Krishan Pal Gurjar too accused the Congress of violating constitutional and democratic norms during its years in power. He alleged that elections in the past were marked by booth capturing and violence and said such incidents had not occurred under the present government and EC. “Ask them (the Congress) about the time when they were in power—how they trampled upon the Constitution, how they overturned Supreme Court verdicts, and how they imprisoned and tortured those who voiced their demands in a democracy,” he said.

Congress MP Pawan Khera rejected the BJP’s charges and said, “CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation is not just the INDIA bloc’s demand, but it has now become India’s demand.”

Dispute Over SIR and Wider Opposition Campaign

The protests and political tussle come after an Indian Express investigation said election commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected least 14 times between November 2025 and August 2026 over the panel’s decisions on SIR and even written to the cabinet secretary. It also alleged that election officials found their access to the ECI software curtailed by the central IT team. ECI said differing views and observations were a normal part of deliberation and that all its digital platforms operated under strict data security protocols.

On Tuesday, at least 300 INDIA bloc lawmakers marched from Parliament to ECI, and later Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra walked into the Akashvani Bhavan campus next door and continued their protest for about eight hours.

The Opposition bloc has also organised “Save Democracy” marches across the country. The parties have planned a rally at Ramlila Maidan on November 1, along with six marches from Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on Constitution Day. The bloc also plans five large rallies outside Delhi and intends to approach the judiciary seeking expedited hearings in cases related to SIR.

The protests also spread to other states on Thursday. The SP took out a march in Uttar Pradesh’s Basti district demanding Kumar’s removal, while in Patna, RJD chief Tejashwi Yadav, CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and VIP chief Mukesh Sahani joined MPs and other INDIA bloc leaders in protests seeking Kumar’s ouster. In Jammu, the Congress district committee held a march to protest FIRs registered against Rahul and Priyanka. And in Bengaluru, the CJP organised a protest.