Police in New Delhi on Tuesday briefly detained several opposition lawmakers after they attempted to push past barricades during a march demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a controversial voter roll revision.
According to AFP and local media, Rahul Gandhi — a leader of the Congress party — was among the lawmakers detained in the Indian capital but was released shortly afterward.
The march was the latest in a series of near-daily protests that began last week, launched by student groups, opposition parties and India's youth-led "Cockroach" movement.
Protesters are demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the election body he heads of manipulating voter registration to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
"The Election Commission is a puppet in the hands of the government," Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters as the march began.
Ahead of Tuesday's protest, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters: "After repeated failures, Congress leaders have decided to create anarchy in this country and attack institutions."
During the roughly 1-kilometer march from parliament to the Election Commission headquarters through central New Delhi, lawmakers carried banners, waved national flags and chanted slogans against Kumar.
India began a Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls in the state of Bihar last year, ahead of state elections. The revision was later expanded to most states and federally administered territories.
Critics say the process requires confusing and hard-to-obtain documents, threatening to exclude millions of eligible voters. Election Commission data shows voter rolls could shrink by as much as 30 percent in some areas.
The Election Commission maintains that the voter roll revision is aimed at removing duplicate, deceased or ineligible entries and preserving the integrity of elections. On Friday, it directed officials to register eligible voters who were inadvertently left off the rolls.
