Hundreds gathered at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Parliament Square on Saturday to protest against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of India’s electoral rolls.
According to reports, a smaller group of government supporters held a counter-protest nearby.
The protest was organised by the Indian Overseas Congress Youth wing and backed by diaspora platforms including Save Democracy, SFI UK and the South Asia Solidarity Group.
Metropolitan Police officers kept the two crowds apart as each tried to drown out the other’s chants.
YouTuber Dhruv Rathee was the keynote speaker; he flew in from Delhi on Friday and urged followers on X to attend.
Addressing the crowd in Hindi, he said, “We don’t want any foreign interference,” describing his audience as Indians and NRIs.
“The protests would end once the CEC is replaced in a joint session by the government and the Leader of the Opposition,” he added.
India Diaspora UK called its supporters to the square, and its founder, Hirdesh Gupta, said the diaspora stands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government.
The Election Commission of India says the SIR is meant to update the rolls by removing dead, duplicate, shifted and otherwise ineligible entries.
Critics say it is being used to favour the ruling party, as protesters accuse the BJP of colluding with Commission appointees, including Kumar, while the Commission and the ruling party deny the charge.
Commission data cited that about 130 million names were deleted, including 63 million who had relocated, 30 million who could not be traced and 28 million who had died.
At a protest in Bengaluru earlier this month, Rathee alleged that around 65 lakh names were removed in Bihar and the Commission published details only after a Supreme Court order.
He also claimed that about 70,000 voters in West Bengal were removed before the Assembly elections and restored afterwards.
Saturday’s rally followed an “Emergency Protest” on Tuesday and a smaller protest with a counter-protest outside the Indian High Commission on Friday.
SFI UK urged the international community and the media to take note and asked the Indian government to address demands for electoral integrity rather than criminalise those raising them.
The turnout shows that the dispute has travelled beyond India and that both critics and supporters of the government can mobilise abroad within days.
It does not show that the diaspora as a whole is divided, nor that overseas pressure will change the debate at home.
Both events were run by organised groups, and attendance was reported only as hundreds.
