India's election chief faces scrutiny over voter-roll changes, analyst says

Police in New Delhi briefly detained opposition members, including Rahul Gandhi, as an alliance of parties marched to the Election Commission headquarters.
They accuse Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of manipulating votes and say the commission's revision of voter rolls has removed millions of eligible voters to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP.
Nandini Deo, associate professor of international politics at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera the allegations have gained credibility amid reports that the chief election commissioner overrode objections raised by his two co-commissioners during the process.
She said the government claims it is regularising voter rolls by removing dead or unidentifiable voters, but documentation is difficult for marginalised groups, including migrant labourers and rural women.
Deo explained that eliminating even a few hundred voters in a district can swing elections due to India's first-past-the-post system. She also noted that recent youth mobilisation forced the education minister to resign, and the opposition is now trying to build on that momentum.

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