As India’s opposition parties step up street mobilisations and question the neutrality of key institutions like the Election Commission ahead of critical state elections, the broader struggle reflects a global wave of democratic resistance. The Federal spoke to Gilles Verniers, Researcher at CERI, Sciences Po, Paris, to analyse the rising tide of protests, institutional decay, and the evolving dynamics within the INDIA bloc.
Edited excerpts:
The November 1 protest rally in Delhi marked a significant moment in the INDIA bloc coming together. How effectively do you see these street-level assemblies mobilising people, and how will this add up for future elections, starting with the state polls in 2027 and the general elections later?
The November 1 rally was a show of force and unity for the Opposition, demonstrated through the sheer diversity of parties represented by top leaders — Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Tejashwi Yadav, and others. There were, of course, some notable absences, such as MK Stalin. Reversing perceptions of a downward trajectory following recent electoral setbacks, the Opposition is in a better position than last year, when it attempted to mobilise around electoral integrity without gaining traction.
The emergence of the Cockroach Janata Party movement — which started with demands regarding NEET before evolving into a broader pro-democracy movement — has given credence to claims regarding issues plaguing India’s electoral process.
However, such moments carry risks of overreaching. Talking about ‘stolen elections’ or completely delegitimising the electoral process has serious consequences, including voter disaffection. Under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, millions were unduly removed from electoral rolls in a discretionary manner. But the figure of 13.5 crore deleted voters cited by Rahul Gandhi also includes legitimate deletions.
Similarly, calling the 2024 elections illegal while demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar omits that Rajiv Kumar was CEC during those elections. While Gyanesh Kumar bears responsibility, larger structural issues plague the Election Commission. Nevertheless, recent movements have lent legitimacy to Opposition claims, providing fuel for incoming campaigns.
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How confident are you that slogans like ‘vote chori’ (vote theft), issues surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), and the demand for CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation will resonate with voters, rather than the divisive issues that the BJP frequently plays up in its strongholds?
The short and simple answer is that we don’t know. Indian voter behaviour is always shaped by a multiplicity of local, regional, and national factors.
That said, the Opposition is in a better position now to push these issues because their effects are far more tangible, felt directly by the millions of people who have been unduly removed from electoral lists. Millions of excluded voters have families, relatives, and friends who have witnessed the impact of the SIR process. Allegations of ‘vote chori’ that felt abstract in the past have now acquired tangible weight.
However, electoral behaviour remains complex, making it difficult to isolate a single factor and predict its exact impact. There is also no doubt that the BJP will try everything to shift the conversation away from terrain where it stands uncomfortably, attempting to divert attention toward communal rhetoric, illegal migration, and dog-whistling against minorities.
The extent of institutional capture we are witnessing — the loss of independence in key bodies, notably the judiciary and the Election Commission — is unprecedented compared to pre-2014 parliamentary disruptions.
We now have clearer evidence on some of these claims. Regarding allegations of illegal immigrants creeping onto electoral rolls, available evidence indicates no more than about 1,600 cases nationwide. While one can argue that 1,600 is still 1,600 too many, these numbers are not large enough to sway elections, even at a single constituency level.
Another crucial shift, visible since 2024, is that voters increasingly have access to alternative information sources beyond traditional media aligned with government narratives. Social media and independent electronic media have expanded their reach, weakening the monopoly the BJP once held over the media sphere. In terms of communications and social media narratives, the BJP has clearly lost ground to the Opposition, particularly the Congress.
Just a day before the rally, the Opposition held a mock parliament and passed a mock impeachment motion against CEC Gyanesh Kumar. Does delegitimizing a constitutional office while continuing to participate in elections risk opening the Opposition to charges of hypocrisy from the BJP and its allies?
There are multiple dimensions to this. First, regarding the removal of a CEC, there is no real precedent in India. No CEC has ever been removed by Parliament. The constitutional procedure for removing a CEC is akin to that for removing judges, which has rarely resulted in actual removal. The only notable instance was Justice Soumitra Sen in 2011, who resigned after the Rajya Sabha passed an impeachment motion against him.
The mock parliament and mock impeachment motion served as symbolic substitutes for constitutional motions that cannot pass in the current arithmetic, and for institutions that no longer function as they should.
The same logic applies to street protests. The Opposition takes to the streets when institutional avenues are blocked. For instance, notice after notice under Rule 193 in Parliament was rejected without explanation. It becomes difficult for the BJP to criticize street protests without explaining why institutional avenues within Parliament have been shut down.
The difference today is one of degree. The extent of institutional capture we are witnessing — the loss of independence in key bodies, notably the judiciary and the Election Commission — is unprecedented compared to pre-2014 parliamentary disruptions.
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Historically, street protests have yielded mixed electoral results. Looking ahead to the first major electoral bout in early 2027—in states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Manipur—how do you see these national issues and regional controversies intersecting with local dynamics?
For a protest movement to translate into an electoral force, it must follow a two-step sequence. First, there must be a widespread delegitimization of the ruling party. In 2013, before the 2014 general elections, a broad consensus existed that the UPA-2 government was plagued by corruption. Today, while many voters agree with criticisms of the BJP, the ruling party still retains substantial support across various demographics.
Second, an opposition force must possess the organizational capacity to capture that discontent and translate it into votes. Reaping the benefits of a movement does not automatically fall to those who lead it. The 2011–2013 anti-corruption movement was largely a civil society movement, but it was the BJP that possessed the organizational muscle to capitalize on it politically.
The critical questions today are: Has the BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi been delegitimized enough to create a demand for an alternative among a sufficiently large section of the electorate? And does the Opposition, particularly the Congress, have the organizational bandwidth, resources, and ground-level strength to fill that space?
Global demonstrations show citizens mobilising to demand more democracy and repair declining democratic systems, representing an organized backlash against the rise of illiberalism worldwide.
While Prime Minister Modi appears more combative than ever, the BJP on paper remains as dominant as it has ever been. There is a distinction between authority and legitimacy; Mr. Modi retains firm control over the political resources that brought him to power 12 years ago.
As for the Opposition, significant questions remain. Filling Ramlila Maidan with tens of thousands of people is impressive, but it is insufficient for winning elections. The BJP retains unmatched booth-level canvassing capacity, whereas the Opposition’s organizational gaps remain evident.
In state elections like Uttar Pradesh, voters primarily focus on local issues and evaluate the state government — in this case, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — rather than national leadership. The BJP is now the entrenched establishment party in UP after a decade in power. Whether the Samajwadi Party and Congress can present a formidable challenge depends heavily on their alliance terms and organizational preparation.
If Congress spends extensive time on national marches and protests against the Election Commission, there is an opportunity cost. That time and effort are diverted away from ground-level organizational work in crucial states like UP.
When the youth-led Cockroach Janata Party protests began, few anticipated their political resonance, yet they forced the government onto the back foot, culminating in Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. How do you assess the government’s administrative and political response, including its use of heavy police force and security crackdowns?
Regarding violence, what has changed is not necessarily the degree of force used against protesters—we saw considerable violence during the farmers’ protests, in Kashmir, and elsewhere. Around the world, police doctrines are shifting toward greater use of force.
What has fundamentally changed in India is the state’s attempt to quash protests before they even begin. We see an unprecedented display of territorial control: mass denotification of gathering sites, heavy deployment of security forces, pre-emptive internet blockades, and the disruption of train services and public transport specifically designed to prevent citizens from assembling. This constitutes a severe erosion of the constitutional right to protest.
When responding to social movements like the Cockroach Janata Party or political coalitions like the INDIA bloc, the government consistently relies on a familiar playbook:
First, complete denial of wrongdoing, claiming that processes like the SIR have full consensus and judicial approval, ignoring documented internal objections.
Second, refusal to take responsibility, shifting blame onto “infiltrators” or an Opposition that cannot accept defeat, while ignoring issues like missing voter data or arbitrary deletions.
Third, delegitimizing dissenters using tags like “Banana Republic,” “regime change,” or “Dimagi Naxal” to mock opponents, alongside opportunistic counter-narratives like demanding apologies for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Fourth, asserting institutional sanctity by insisting that constitutional authorities cannot be challenged on the streets and urging critics to rely solely on the courts, even while eroding the independence of those very institutions.
This playbook is generally effective against partisan political rivals because voters recognize their interest in unseating the government. However, it has proved largely ineffective against non-partisan, leaderless youth movements like the Cockroach Janata Party, which focus on broad, common-sense issues. Ground-level repression often backfires, giving fresh momentum to such protests.
Youth and student protests in India have coincided with major student demonstrations across Europe, including in France, Serbia, and Albania. How does the Indian movement compare to these global youth-led protests?
India’s protests belong to a broader global wave of youth-led revolts sharing common underlying roots. While context differs — India is not on the eve of a national election — the core anxieties are remarkably similar across borders.
Young people worldwide face profound economic anxieties regarding cost of living, shrinking job opportunities, and a pervasive feeling that traditional avenues for upward mobility are rigged or lack integrity. Whether in France, Serbia, Albania, or India, there is a profound crisis of institutional trust. In places like Serbia and Albania, protests center on state capture and cronyism. In India, the crisis is unique because citizens are questioning the neutrality of the electoral referee itself.
These movements share a horizontal, leaderless structure that traditional governments struggle to engage with or negotiate against. Authoritarian responses—such as raising the spectre of “foreign hands” or resorting to police crackdowns—often fail and end up fuelling the movements further.
The key distinction lies in institutional trust. In France, citizens may distrust their government, but they still trust the courts, the voting system, and the electoral tally. India faces a deeper predicament because the legitimacy of the electoral arbiter itself is under challenge.
Nevertheless, these global demonstrations show citizens mobilising to demand more democracy and repair declining democratic systems, representing an organized backlash against the rise of illiberalism worldwide.
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In recent Opposition rallies, the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi have occupied a central position. Has the Indian Opposition finally coalesced behind Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, or is it too early to conclude that leadership friction within the anti-BJP camp is resolved?
Political alliances remain fluid, often dependent on personal chemistry and managing individual egos. However, a significant shift has occurred. For a long time, the INDIA bloc was criticized for lacking a cohesive ideology compared to the BJP’s solid narrative. Today, the Opposition has found a unifying narrative: the shared conviction that the rules of the electoral game are being rigged and that key institutions can no longer be trusted.
For regional parties, opposition is no longer merely an opportunistic calculation—it has become an existential necessity. Over the past decade, several regional parties have been severely weakened or dismantled through defections and state pressure.
Historically in Indian politics since the late 1990s, successful coalitions have always required a strong central anchor party. Coalitions that attempted to exclude a primary national pole have consistently failed. With the decline and vulnerability of many regional parties, a ‘Third Front’ alternative is no longer viable.
Regional party leaders are increasingly accepting the centrality of the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi as an inescapable political reality. However, alliance building alone is not enough. In major direct contests across the Hindi belt, the battle remains primarily Congress versus BJP. To challenge the BJP effectively, the Opposition must translate coalition unity into robust, ground-level electoral organization.