India's opposition leader dragged onto bus as police break up protest

ByAbhishek Dey & Nikita Yadav BBC News, Delhi. Updated 51 minutes ago.

Key points

• Opposition parties accuse Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of revising electoral rolls to benefit India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
• A police complaint has additionally been registered against the Gandhis for entering Akashvani Bhavan (or the Broadcasting House) without permission, PTI news agency noted.
• The commission remarked it was willing to meet the opposition, but objected to their proposed 240-member delegation gathering at the parliament.
• Security was tightened around the Election Commission headquarters on Tuesday, with police barricading roads along the route between parliament and the commission's office.
• The group has described those demonstrations as the beginning of a nationwide campaign and has pressed another round of protests on 10 October.

Delhi witnessed dramatic scenes on Tuesday night when police broke up a protest by opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and other MPs who were seeking the resignation of India's top election official over a controversial voter roll revision.

Videos showing police forcing Gandhi onto a bus and preventing him from climbing out of the bus window subsequently went viral on social media.

Meanwhile, the protest marks a fresh escalation in the opposition's standoff with the Election Commission.

Opposition parties accuse Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of revising electoral rolls to benefit India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Both the BJP and the commission have rejected the allegation.

Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other MPs sat in protest at a nearby building for the entire day after they were halted during their march to the Election Commission's office.

Notably, the commission remarked it was willing to meet the opposition, but objected to their proposed 240-member delegation gathering at the parliament.

In an official note published on Tuesday night, it stated that a party representative must request an appointment and that meetings are held at the commission.

Gandhi had remarked earlier in the day that the opposition simply wanted to meet the election commissioners and ask questions concerning the voter roll revision.

"We are all opposition MPs. And we just want to speak with them, " he remarked to journalists. "I do not know why the Election Commission does not want to talk to us."

News agency ANI, citing a statement from the police, documented that the protesters were removed "to maintain law and order and prevent the situation from escalating".

Notably, a police complaint has additionally been registered against the Gandhis for entering Akashvani Bhavan (or the Broadcasting House) without permission, PTI news agency noted.

Police officers, some carrying batons and wearing body cameras, reportedly outnumbered protesters along the route to the poll panel's office.

In the afternoon, they detained a number of MPs who tried to take alternative routes to reach the commission, police official Manjeet Sheoran informed the BBC.

"They were picked up in buses and taken to different police stations, " he remarked.

For context, the Gandhi siblings were additionally detained and taken away in a police bus, but were issued shortly afterwards. They then resumed their march before staging a sit-in at Akashvani Bhavan near the Election Commission headquarters.

Police did not say how plenty of lawmakers were detained. The opposition remarked 237 MPs from a number of parties took part in the march.

Tuesday's protest came just four days after the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a Gen Z-backed online satirical movement, organised demonstrations in Mumbai and Delhi, additionally demanding the CEC's resignation. The group has described those demonstrations as the beginning of a nationwide campaign and has pressed another round of protests on 10 October.

At the centre of the controversy is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The exercise began in the eastern state of Bihar in June 2025 before being expanded to other parts of the country.

In practice, the commission notes the revision is intended to remove duplicate and ineligible voters from electoral rolls. More than 130 million names have so far been removed from draft voter lists nationwide.

Opposition parties and activists allege that plenty of eligible voters have been excluded and accuse the poll panel of conducting the process improperly.

Notably, the campaign against Kumar gathered momentum after an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper documented that election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over a 10-month period to decisions and orders they stated had been issued in the commission's name without their knowledge.

As the report notes, the objections related to problems including additions and deletions from voter rolls, access to the voter database and the security of electoral data.

In practice, the three-member commission, comprising the CEC and two election commissioners, defended its decision-making process, saying differing views were part of institutional functioning and that decisions had ultimately been taken unanimously.

Notably, the revelations nevertheless triggered a political backlash, with opposition leaders intensifying calls for Kumar's resignation.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge remarked they had three "non-negotiable" demands: Kumar's resignation, cancellation of the SIR exercise and a return to paper ballot voting.

Mocking the election chief, Rahul Gandhi, tweeted: "Gyanesh, it's done, bro. Time to resign." The BJP condemned the protests.

BJP MP Sambit Patra described them as a " attempt" to bring regarding a change of power through "anarchy". He accused opposition parties of seeking to undermine constitutional institutions, including the Election Commission.

For context, the controversy has additionally reached India's Supreme Court. It has asked both the federal administration and the Election Commission to respond to a petition alleging that Kumar took key decisions without the approval of the two other election commissioners.

In short, india' s opposition leader dragged onto bus as police break up protest is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.