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INDIA bloc rally at Ramlila Maidan: Rahul Gandhi says CEC Gyanesh Kumar will be removed; Nadda calls it drama
The INDIA bloc held its Chalo Dilli rally at Ramlila Maidan on 1 November demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's removal. Rahul Gandhi said polls in five states were manipulated and Kumar would go; J.P. Nadda called it designed drama. Organisers expected 10 lakh, police 50,000.
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4 min
The INDIA bloc held its Chalo Dilli rally at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan on Sunday, 1 November, to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and to protest alleged irregularities in the electoral rolls. Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was the main speaker. He said elections had been manipulated in several states and that Kumar would be removed. Union Minister J.P. Nadda called the rally a foolish and designed drama. The organisers expected up to 10 lakh people, and Delhi Police expected about 50,000.
The march and the venue
The leaders assembled at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence at 10 Rajaji Marg and left in open buses, travelling about 4 km towards Connaught Place and Minto Road before marching to Ramlila Maidan. Those named as taking part include Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby, CPI general secretary D. Raja and CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. Rahul Gandhi's post on X read: 'Delhi, get ready! Save the Vote, Save the Nation.'
A large tent covered in the tricolour stood over the main stage for senior leaders, and a second stage was set up for state unit representatives. The Cockroach Janta Party, which led recent youth protests in Delhi, backed the rally but did not take part in the march, and its leader said that the party would keep its independent identity.
What Rahul Gandhi said
Rahul Gandhi said that elections were manipulated in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Karnataka, and that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls were also affected by 'vote chori', or vote theft. He claimed that 13.5 crore voters, about 15% of the electorate, were removed from the rolls after the 2024 polls, and he said the National Democratic Alliance's lead over the opposition in 2024 was about 3%. The figure differs from the 13.3 crore that he cited at the mock impeachment on Saturday.
He said Gyanesh Kumar would be removed and would go to jail, that removing him was the first step towards putting the country back on track, and that the opposition would take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi next. Responding to Home Minister Amit Shah's statement that Modi was not going anywhere, he said that Modi cannot go anywhere. He accused the BJP and the RSS of capturing institutions including the ED, the CBI, the bureaucracy and the police, and said that the opposition does not hate Modi, Shah or Kumar. He named Gautam Adani and said that the country should not belong to two or three people.
K.C. Venugopal, the Congress general secretary, called the rally a stern warning to Modi and Shah and said that they had lost their composure over the public support.
The Connaught Place allegation
At about 1:50 pm Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP had forced shops in Connaught Place to shut, saying that the country was watching how shopkeepers were losing business. A live report noted a few hours earlier that there were few shoppers in Connaught Place. The reports found do not carry an independent confirmation or a BJP reply to that specific allegation.
Nadda called the rally a foolish and designed drama and said that it would be the final nail in the Congress's coffin. He linked the rally's timing to the anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The BJP held its own march in West Delhi that morning to commemorate the victims of those riots, from Hari Nagar Bus Depot to Tilak Nagar Metro Station, with leaders including Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and others, and it accused the Congress of holding a political rally on the anniversary.
| Estimate | Figure |
|---|---|
| INDIA bloc organisers' expectation | up to 10 lakh |
| Delhi Police expectation | about 50,000 |
| Ramlila Maidan capacity when empty | 45,000 to 50,000 |
| Capacity with chairs and enclosures | 30,000 to 40,000 |
Nearly 10,000 police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across central Delhi, with more than 4,000 police and Central Armed Police Forces on the route and at the venue. The ground was divided into 14 zones, each supervised by an officer of Assistant Commissioner of Police rank, with more than 200 CCTV cameras, drones and body-worn cameras. One report quotes outstation workers who alleged that police had blocked routes along the Punjab–Haryana border, and another notes that Delhi Police had not granted permission for the march to reach the Maidan. The reports found do not give a final independent crowd count.
The rally followed the mock impeachment of the Chief Election Commissioner at Kharge's residence on 31 October, where a six-charge resolution was passed by a show of hands. Shah had earlier dared the opposition to debate the allegations in a special session of Parliament, and the reports found do not say whether the government has taken any step towards one.
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