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Snapshot of the day
October 28, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan, Kalrav Joshi, Anirudh S.K.
After being denied permission to use several venues, the Congress announced on Wednesday that the INDIA bloc of opposition parties would hold a “public impeachment” of CEC Gyanesh Kumar at party president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence on Rajaji Marg, refusing to “succumb” to what it alleges is Delhi Police’s obstruction of its “Vote Chori” rally preparations, as a warm-up event ahead of the rally scheduled for November 1 at the Ramlila Maidan. Speaking to reporters at Ramlila Maidan, Congress MP and general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal said the Ashoka Hotel had denied permission for the October 30 event after the “police came into the picture” – highlighting the Delhi Police’s role in obstructing opposition protests at the behest of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The Cockroach Jantra Party has also extended its support to the INDIA bloc’s November 1 protest march.
The BJP president Nitin Nabin led a padayatra through Chandni Chowk in Delhi to denounce the Opposition’s campaign. The barricades and stifling police bandobast that have accompanied every other political mobilisation on the streets the past few weeks were conspicuously absent.
The Supreme Court has questioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) over its insistence that voters already on the electoral rolls fill out Form 6 to be included in the draft roll under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), simply because officials could not reach them. Chief Justice of India Surya Kant called the requirement erroneous, pointing out that Form 6 is meant for first-time voters, who must declare they have never been enrolled before. “Instead of burdening them to approach you, why don’t you reach out to them?” he asked.
The bench also clarified that it had never adjudicated on or approved the ECI’s use of ‘logical discrepancies’, allowing it only as an interim measure in the West Bengal case, Justice Joymalya Bagchi said. The distinction raises fresh questions about the deletion of 27 lakh voters in the state. Meanwhile, Aparna Bhattacharya lists down five problems in the ECI’s explanation for the 16 lakh appeals against Bengal voters, drawing on the poll body’s affidavit, court orders and appeal records.
In another significant exchange, the court questioned the ECI over the 47 lakh people on the ASDD (Absentee / Shifted / Duplicate / Deceased) list, asking why they could not be given an opportunity to submit enumeration forms or file Form 8. Read LiveLaw’s thread on X for more from today’s proceedings.
Meanwhile, despite the 30-day statutory deadline having passed, the ECI has yet to respond to an RTI query by activist Commodore (Retd) Lokesh Batra seeking details and copies of the recorded dissent and disagreements of Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu to the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls 14 times in 10 months, as reported by the Express. Amidst nation-wide calls for CEC
