Street protests cannot decide what the courts must settle

The campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar reflects the belief that sustained public pressure can force institutional concessions. But the Election Commission is not an arm of the government, and the legality of the SIR must be tested through constitutional and judicial processes.

The events unfolding in Delhi over the past few days point to a political strategy increasingly visible in the opposition’s campaign against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls: take a dispute already before the courts to the streets, and hope that public mobilisation compels the government to concede demands it would otherwise reject.

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) began its agitation against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, demanding his resignation over the SIR. The Congress has pursued the same broad objective through its own campaign. On 12 October, Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders sought to meet Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, and Gandhi filed a petition challenging the SIR. The two political formations have operated separately despite overlapping demands.

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The Congress has also made clear that it sees the controversy as part of a wider political confrontation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. 

That makes the immediate question larger than whether the SIR is lawful: can street mobilisation over a constitutional dispute force the government to deliver a political concession?

The campaign has attracted stakeholders whose grievances are not necessarily connected to the SIR or Kumar. Some sections of alternative media, along with individuals and groups critical of the Modi government for other reasons, see the controversy as an opportunity to air those grievances on a common platform. Their participation does not, by itself, establish that they have independently examined the SIR and found it unlawful. The dispute has become a rallying point for a wider constituency of government critics, bringing together people with different motivations. It is therefore important to distinguish objections grounded in the SIR process from participation driven by separate political or institutional disagreements.