INDIA bloc’s Delhi unit, AAP protest outside CEO’s Office over SIR ‘lapses’

The Delhi unit of the INDIA bloc staged a demonstration outside the office of Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar in Kashmere Gate on Wednesday, making it a new flashpoint for protests over alleged irregularities in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is not part of the alliance, also joined the protest. AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj said the party had participated following a call by the Left parties for a wider alliance to “save democracy”.

The gate to the CEO’s Office in Old St. Stephen’s College Building in north Delhi was cordoned off with barricades amid heavy police deployment to prevent the protesters from entering the premises.

The protesters demanded the SIR exercise be scrapped, names of all eligible voters excluded from the draft roll be restored and elections be held using ballot papers. The State units of the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, among others, participated in the demonstration.

Opposition leaders submitted a memorandum to the CEO, addressed to President Droupadi Murmu, highlighting their demands.

In Delhi, around 47.5 lakh names were left out of the draft roll published on August 31. Of the 97.5 lakh electors included in the draft roll, 33.1 lakh have been flagged for scrutiny because of the absence of mapping with the previous SIR roll or logical discrepancies. The exercise, originally scheduled to be completed in three months, has now stretched to five months, with December 4 set as the deadline for publication of the final roll.

‘Restore names’

Anurag Saxena, Delhi State secretary of the CPI(M), said, “Except for the names of deceased persons that are to be removed, the names of all eligible citizens whose names have been deleted from the electoral rolls through SIR should be restored immediately. No living and eligible citizen should be deprived of their right to vote.”

Addressing the gathering, Mr. Bharadwaj alleged that votes had been “stolen” in the 2025 Delhi Assembly election to defeat senior AAP leaders, including former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. He claimed that the same “dishonesty” was now being repeated across the country.

“The 2025 Delhi election was manipulated and our leaders were defeated by deleting votes. Arvind Kejriwal’s New Delhi constituency had 1,45,000 votes, of which around 45,000 votes were deleted, and he was defeated by 4,000 votes. The same manipulation is now being carried out across the country,” Mr. Bharadwaj said.

AAP demanded restoration of the names removed from the Delhi roll and sought the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Earlier in the day, Delhi Congress unit president Devender Yadav questioned Mr. Bharadwaj’s “change of heart” after AAP announced its support to the INDIA bloc protests.

“You didn’t attend the INDIA meeting, nor did you show up for yesterday’s [Tuesday] historic rally. Seeing the public’s enthusiasm yesterday and their support for Rahul Gandhiji and Priyanka Gandhiji suddenly make you remember INDIA? Where do you stand? With the opposition or with the BJP?” he wrote in an X post.

In response, Mr. Bharadwaj said his party had joined the call issued by the Left parties and that AAP and its students’ wing had participated in all protest calls since October 2. “We support all well-meaning protests, be it the protests by farmers, women wrestlers, the CJP and now this,” he said.