Day: November 1, 2026
Thousands protested in Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of India’s election chief over a revision of voter lists, the latest in more than a month of opposition demonstrations challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Report informs via Reuters.
Led by Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi, Sunday’s protesters say the controversial revision benefits Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Analysts say the protests and growing support for the opposition form the worst crisis for Modi since he came to power in 2014, though his government remains stable and the next general election is not due until 2029.
Authorities tightened security and warned of traffic diversions before protesters began a march from central Delhi to the designated rally site, where the opposition has predicted hundreds of thousands of people would participate.
Hundreds of security personnel, some of them carrying batons and shields and accompanied by riot-control vehicles, surrounded the historic Ramlila Maidan ground as hundreds of people, many waving national and party flags, began moving towards it. Opposition party leaders led the march in an open-top jeep.
Among the thousands waiting for the marchers at the Ramlila Maidan was Reena Mahto, a member of the Congress’ student wing, who said four people from her family had been deleted from the voter list due to the false claim that they had moved elsewhere.
Five people were killed in two separate incidents in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, police said on Sunday, as fresh ethnic violence erupted in the conflict-hit region, Report informs via Reuters.
Three men from the Kuki tribal group were killed in an exchange of gunfire between “unidentified armed miscreants” in the state’s Noney district on Saturday, according to a police statement.
The bodies of two other men from the same community, who had gone missing earlier this week, were recovered in Kangpokpi district on Sunday morning after security personnel launched a search operation, a second police statement said.
A top Kuki tribal body blamed Naga separatist outfits for the killings, describing them as a “direct unprovoked assault . . . in their homeland.”
The killings came amid mass protests attended by hundreds of thousands of people in the state capital Imphal and other areas, demanding the abrogation of a ceasefire arrangement between Kuki armed groups and the Indian state.
The predominantly Christian Kuki and Naga tribes have a long history of conflict over competing claims to ethnic homelands in the remote northeastern state.
The latest fighting erupted after a Naga man was allegedly assaulted by men from the Kuki community in February this year.
