Protests seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the suspension of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls entered their third day on Sunday (October 4, 2026), with demonstrations continuing in New Delhi and Mumbai.
She was later released from the Narela Industrial Area police station. In Mumbai, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray led a march seeking the CEC’s removal and the scrapping of the ongoing SIR drive. The group alleged that the personnel who picked her up were not wearing name tags. Upon her release, Ms. “These children have faced so much. It should go. He asked the commission to state how many of those left out of the draft rolls had been identified as immigrants from Bangladesh. Give details.
Leaders from the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP) also participated in the ‘Virat Garjana Morcha’ from Metro Cinema to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters, which drew nearly 6,000 participants. The All India Students’ Association (AISA) alleged that its national president, Neha Bora, was picked up by police personnel in a private car from Ashoka Road around 5 p.m. and that her whereabouts were not immediately known. Bora said, “They think we are dogs, cockroaches or insects that they can pick us up, throw us into vehicles, take us 50 kilometres away, beat us, and push us around. Among those who joined the protest in the Capital was 83-year-old screenwriter and director Saeed Akhtar Mirza. “Are the 2 crore people from Bangladesh?
History is being created, and I want to be a part of it,” he said from a wheelchair, adding, “This regime is corrupt, communal and criminal. “You can control institutions, but streets belong to us,” he said, adding that the removal of “around 13 crore names” from draft rolls across the country amounted to disenfranchisement. We will find them and throw them out of the country,” he said.
But today, we showed that we are citizens of this country.
The MNS chief added that he had first flagged the issue of “vote theft” in 2017-18 to Opposition leaders and urged them to boycott elections. “At that time, I met several leaders, including [Congress leader] Sonia Gandhi and [Trinamool Congress president and then West Bengal Chief Minister] Mamata Banerjee, and told them to boycott elections. Otherwise, the truth will not come out,” he said.
