INDIA bloc sets a protest calendar on SIR and the CEC after its Delhi meeting

The INDIA bloc, after its meeting in Delhi on Wednesday, 30 September 2026, announced a protest calendar on SIR and on the Chief Election Commissioner. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge put the dates out. India TV, Hindustan Times, The Tribune, the Economic Times, India Today, NDTV, PTI copies carried by DT Next and The New Indian Express, and ETV Bharat reported the announcement the same day, India time. This account is that calendar, the ballot demand, and the resignation demand as a party line, with the Election Commission's stated position beside it.

The first dates are local. From 2 to 8 October the bloc plans district-level marches under the name "Save Democracy", and protests outside district magistrate offices. That is the form Kharge announced. It is a plan for those seven days. It is not a report that the marches have already happened.

On 6 October, all opposition MPs are to march to the Election Commission. Separately, Leaders of the Opposition are to seek an appointment with the President in the second week of October. The notes list that appointment as an attempt to seek a meeting, not as a meeting that has been fixed. On 1 November the bloc plans a rally in Delhi. The notes call it one of five big rallies. The other dates and venues are still to be announced, so they are not guessed here.

On voting method, Kharge said all parties agreed on ballot papers instead of electronic voting machines. The notes also record that agreement as "100 percent". That is what he said the meeting decided. It is not a change in election law, and it is not the Election Commission's decision.

The resignation line needs the same limit. Opposition leaders demanded that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign. In the PTI copy, that demand is carried from Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi. It is a demand by those leaders and by the bloc as the reports describe it. It is not a finding that he should go, and it is not a finding about the SIR exercise. A party can demand a resignation. The demand does not, by being reported, become a conclusion.

The Election Commission's stated position, as these reports carry it, sits next to that demand. Differing views, the Commission is reported as saying, are a normal part of deliberations. Its orders carry full legal sanction and follow statutory procedures. That is the Commission's account in the material checked. This report does not choose between the demand and that account. It prints both.

Attendance, as reported, is narrower than a full roll call. Uddhav Thackeray and Hemant Soren joined the meeting virtually. AAP and DMK did not attend. India TV had reported before the meeting that the DMK and AAP would skip it. The later account is that they did not attend. Both are "as reported". A longer list of who was in the room is not in the lines used here.

What's next

The dates that are fixed in this announcement are 2 to 8 October for the district marches, 6 October for the MPs' march to the Election Commission, the second week of October for an attempt to meet the President, and 1 November for the Delhi rally. The call for Gyanesh Kumar's resignation remains the opposition's demand. The Election Commission's stated position remains the one the reports set beside it.