INDIA SUPREME COURT QUESTIONS GOVERNMENT OVER VOTER LIST PURGE

Hundreds of police personnel were deployed in New Delhi as opposition parties, student groups and the youth-led Cockroach movement staged protests demanding the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, who heads the Election Commission of India. The protests, held near-daily since last week, accuse the commission of manipulating voter registrations through a revision exercise that has removed tens of millions of names from the electoral roll, with one report citing a figure of 130 million. India's supreme court issued notices on Monday to Narendra Modi's government, the Election Commission and Kumar himself, demanding they respond "in a clear, transparent manner" to concerns raised over the exercise. Hundreds of people were reportedly detained in Delhi after trying to protest over the weekend. The Election Commission and the government deny any wrongdoing.

The Special Intensive Revision began in Bihar last year ahead of state elections and has since expanded to most states and federally administered territories. The commission describes it as an effort to remove duplicate, dead and ineligible entries, including what it calls "illegal infiltrators", while ensuring eligible voters remain registered. Critics, including the opposition alliance led by the Congress party, say the process demands documents that are confusing and difficult to obtain, and accuse the commission of enabling what they call vote "chori", or cheating. Election Commission data cited in reporting suggests voter rolls could shrink by as much as 30% in some regions. Large numbers of people in Delhi, Bihar and West Bengal say they have been wrongly removed from the rolls and have struggled to reinstate their registration, with some accusing the exercise of disproportionately targeting Muslim voters.

The Cockroach movement, an online campaign that calls itself the Cockroach Janata Party, has organised previous street protests that it says led to an education minister's resignation in July. Security personnel carrying batons stood behind barricades outside the Election Commission's office near Parliament, and authorities issued travel advisories and closed some roads around the protest site. The supreme court's notices mean the government, the commission and Kumar are now required to respond to the concerns raised. No date for that response has been confirmed in reporting so far.