Delhi bans big crowds as protest against poll body chief grows

So did the protest happen or not?

Yes. Despite Delhi Police denying permission and banning gatherings of five or more, people showed up on 2 October. Police detained over 700 in Delhi, including Neha Bora, president of the student group AISA, and activist Yogendra Yadav, a well-known political analyst. In Mumbai, thousands defied a similar ban at Shivaji Park, where actor Naseeruddin Shah joined the protest.

How is Section 163 different from banning speech?

Section 163 restricts specific gatherings, processions, or speeches without permission to prevent public disorder, but it does not ban speech itself. Critics say its broad preventive powers can still curtail the right to peaceful assembly, requiring magistrates to record reasons and keep restrictions proportionate.

Who actually controls the voter rolls after the SIR?

Under the law, each area's Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) holds the power to add, delete or correct names. But the two dissenting commissioners warned of a "gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database" through ECINET. In Goa, 97 voters cleared by local EROs were left off because the central software couldn't record their decisions, even after the CEO wrote eight times asking for a fix.

What could change the outcome of this dispute?

The Supreme Court agreed on 29 September to hear a petition on whether CEC Gyanesh Kumar took key SIR decisions without the other commissioners' concurrence, and ordered the ECI's records preserved since October 2025. The 1991 Act, the law governing the Election Commission, says decisions should be unanimous, but if commissioners differ, majority vote decides, with no special weight for the CEC. Our read: the records will settle whether the CEC bypassed that vote.

Why are they demanding the resignation of the CEC?

Protesters say the CEC pushed through a voter-list cleanup, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), that wrongly excluded over 13 crore names, and did so without the other two election commissioners' approval. Those commissioners recorded formal objections at least 14 times. The Supreme Court will now decide if those decisions were lawful.

If the EC says decisions were unanimous, who is lying?

That dispute now sits before the Supreme Court. On 29 September it agreed to hear a petition asking whether Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar took key decisions without the concurrence of the other two commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, both election commissioners. The court also seeks the EC's records since October 2025, which could reveal internal decision-making.