For the second day running, police in New Delhi physically removed India's top opposition leader from the street. Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament, was carried onto a police bus on Wednesday along with his sister, lawmaker Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, as opposition MPs tried to reach Jantar Mantar, the city's designated protest site.
Both were released after about two hours, Indian outlets reported. A Delhi police spokesperson told the Hindustan Times that 91 opposition leaders and workers were detained in all.
What happened
About 200 lawmakers from the INDIA opposition alliance set out in buses from central Delhi on Wednesday afternoon. Police stopped them near the intersection of Janpath and Ashoka Road, the Hindustan Times reported, and the standoff stretched past three hours, snarling traffic in the capital. Lawmakers staged a sit-in at a roundabout outside the Shangri-La hotel. Photos of Vadra lying on her back in the road, holding a copy of India's Constitution, spread widely online.
"We are not going to stop protesting till Gyanesh Kumar resigns," Gandhi said in a post on X, according to The Hindu. Vadra said police had "scratched me all over." Police, for their part, said some officers, including women, alleged they were manhandled, and that they were reviewing body camera and other footage before filing a case.
On Tuesday, the BBC reported, police had broken up a day-long sit-in after the opposition's march to the Election Commission was blocked. Police filed a complaint against the Gandhis for entering a government broadcasting building without permission.
The dispute
At the center is a sweeping revision of India's voter rolls, known as the Special Intensive Revision. It began in Bihar in June 2025 and has since spread nationwide. The Election Commission says it is removing duplicate and ineligible voters; more than 130 million names have been dropped from draft lists so far, according to the BBC. Opposition parties say many eligible voters are being cut and accuse Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of favoring the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, which both the party and the commission deny.
Pressure grew after an Indian Express investigation reported that the commission's two other members had formally objected at least 14 times to decisions issued without their knowledge. The commission has said differing views are a normal part of its work. India's Supreme Court has asked the government and the commission to respond to a petition on the issue.
BJP leaders called the protests an attempt to create "anarchy." The opposition says it will march again Thursday and has asked President Droupadi Murmu for a meeting.