The opposition INDIA bloc will hold its symbolic public impeachment of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at the official residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on October 30, after the party said permission was denied for the event at two venues in the national capital.
Congress announced the change of venue on Tuesday, saying the programme would now take place at 10 Rajaji Marg, Kharge's official residence, at 3.30 pm on Friday. In a letter to INDIA bloc leaders, Kharge wrote: I request you to kindly assemble on 30 October 2026 at 3.30 pm at 10 Rajaji Marg, in connection with the public impeachment of the CEC. Kindly make it convenient to attend.
The decision followed what the Congress described as a series of roadblocks in securing a venue. The event was originally planned at the government-owned Hotel Ashok in Chanakyapuri, where a mock Parliament session was to be held on October 30 with the proposal to impeach the Chief Election Commissioner at the centre of the debate.
Congress general secretary (organisation) K. C. Venugopal said the hotel had initially allowed the event but later denied permission following police intervention.
The party then turned to Ramlila Maidan, the historic protest ground in central Delhi, which Venugopal said the INDIA bloc had booked from October 25 to November 3. According to the Congress, police stopped workers from setting up infrastructure at the ground on Sunday despite the organisers holding the requisite permissions.
Sources quoted in news reports said the bloc had also explored other venues, including Talkatora Stadium, the Constitution Club, Mavlankar Hall and the Dr Ambedkar International Centre, but was unable to secure bookings at any of them.
Venugopal reacted sharply to the denials. He asked, addressing the Union Home Minister: How many permissions will you deny, Mr Amit Shah? How many people will you stop?
He said 21 parties of the INDIA bloc had planned the public impeachment as a curtain-raiser to the alliance's mega rally and march on November 1, and warned that if the opposition was stopped at the proposed venues, it could stage a massive dharna outside the residences of Amit Shah or Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The proposed event is part of a sustained campaign by the Congress and other opposition parties demanding Kumar's resignation. The opposition alleges irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls currently under way across several states, and accuses the Election Commission of enabling the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to win elections through what it calls vote chori, or vote theft.
The Election Commission has rejected the charge, and the government has dismissed the campaign as politically motivated.
It is important to be clear about what the October 30 event is, and what it is not. The public impeachment is a symbolic political protest, not a formal constitutional proceeding. Under the Constitution, the Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only through a process similar to that for a judge of the Supreme Court, requiring a motion passed by Parliament on grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.
No such motion is before Parliament, and the INDIA bloc's event has no legal power to remove Kumar from office. Its purpose, as the opposition itself describes it, is to deliver a public verdict and to build political pressure ahead of the November 1 rally.
That rally, planned at Ramlila Maidan, is intended to be the centrepiece of the campaign. Organisers have said they hope to mobilise five lakh protesters to press for the CEC's resignation, and the October 30 proceedings are designed to set the tone for it.
Leaders and representatives of INDIA bloc parties are expected to participate in the discussion on the proposal and on the functioning of the Election Commission, and the mock Parliament format is meant to mirror, in protest form, the parliamentary process the bloc says should be set in motion.
The venue row has itself become part of the opposition's argument. By shifting the event to Kharge's residence, the bloc is presenting the denial of permission at Hotel Ashok and Ramlila Maidan as evidence that the government is trying to silence dissent. Venugopal's charge that the hotel withdrew permission after police intervened, and that workers were stopped at Ramlila Maidan despite holding permissions, is central to that case.
The government and the Delhi Police have not, in the reports published so far, offered a detailed public response to the specific claims about the two venues.
The confrontation comes against the backdrop of a wider and increasingly bitter dispute over the electoral rolls. The SIR exercise, which involves an intensive door-to-door verification of voters, has been challenged in the Supreme Court, where the Election Commission has told the court that its decisions on the revision were unanimous.
Opposition parties have alleged large-scale deletions of voters, while the Commission maintains that the revision is a routine exercise to clean up the rolls. The argument has spilled from the courts into street protests, parliamentary exchanges and now the planned mock impeachment.
Kharge himself occupies a dual role in the episode: as Congress president and as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, his residence has now become the fallback venue for a protest directed at the head of the country's election machinery. That choice underlines how personal the confrontation has become, and how far the normal courtesies between the government and the opposition have frayed over the election issue.
For the INDIA bloc, the stakes on October 30 are presentational as much as political. A well-attended proceeding at Kharge's residence, followed by a large rally on November 1, would demonstrate that the campaign against the Election Commission retains momentum despite the venue denials. A thin turnout, by contrast, would hand the government an easy rebuttal.
Much will depend on how many of the 21 parties in the alliance actually send senior leaders to 10 Rajaji Marg on Friday afternoon, and on whether the event is allowed to proceed without further obstruction.
What is certain is that the dispute over the Election Commission is not going away. The SIR exercise continues, the court cases continue, and the opposition's campaign has now acquired a fixed calendar: October 30 for the symbolic impeachment, November 1 for the mega rally. The venue may have changed, but the confrontation it was meant to stage has not.
If anything, the move to Kharge's residence has sharpened it, turning a dispute about a booking into a test of whether the opposition can hold its protest at all.
(Reporting based on The Times of India and The New Indian Express.)