Neha Bora and AISA lead Delhi voter-roll protests against Election Commissioner

Neha Bora, national president of the All India Students' Association (AISA), has emerged as a prominent face of protests in New Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The 29-year-old Jawaharlal Nehru University PhD scholar in Theatre and Performance Studies has been involved in student activism for about a decade.

AISA, formed in 1990, is the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and follows a clear left-wing ideological line. The group focuses on affordable education, student rights, social justice, and opposition to policies it views as anti-democratic.

Protesters say the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision of voter lists deleted over 130 million names. Bora has been highly visible in the current demonstrations, often detained and chased by police while leading flash marches.

Video footage circulating since last week shows Bora being dragged along a road by female security personnel before climbing a police barricade while holding a megaphone and chanting slogans. Images of her smiling while being carried by police also spread on social media.

Bora told BBC Bangla that the attention she received is not extraordinary, saying left-wing student activists often do the same things but cameras were focused on her this time. She uses they/them pronouns and comes from Khatima in Uttarakhand.

The protests are among several high-profile demonstrations in India described as among the biggest challenges in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 12 years in power. The Cockroach Janta Party, a satirical online movement led by Abhijeet Dipke, is also involved in the demonstrations.