The Indian Youth Congress deleted a promotional reel for its 'Chalo Dilli' protest on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, after the video drew a backlash from users who accused it of normalising the filming of women without consent. The row has now become a second front in the opposition's wider campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, with the Supreme Court deferring a hearing on pleas against the Election Commission on the same day.
What the video showed, and why it was deleted
According to NDTV and Outlook India, the roughly 20-second reel showed a young man secretly filming three women walking at night, using his phone flashlight, then swiping through the photos, with a poster for the November 1 Ramlila Maidan rally appearing on a woman's phone when he zoomed in. Critics on social media said the video presented behaviour resembling stalking or street harassment as fashionable, and questioned its message about consent and women's dignity. BJP leader Vishnu Vardhan Reddy accused the Youth Congress of normalising stalking and harassment, saying women's dignity is not a political prop and demanding accountability from a party that speaks about women's empowerment. Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib was reported both defending the video's concept and, in another account, saying secretly filming someone was wrong; the organisation deleted the video from its official X account after the backlash.
The wider campaign against the Election Commission
The deleted reel was promoting the INDIA bloc's November 1 rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, demanding Kumar's removal. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi told a public hearing at Trilokpuri in Delhi on October 27 that Kumar presided over alleged voter deletions, calling it vote theft orchestrated from the top, and claimed 416 voters were illegally deleted across four polling booths. He said the agitation would continue until Kumar resigned or Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed him. On October 26, Gandhi told Delhi traders to tell Modi to remove Kumar and the protests would stop in 30 seconds. The opposition has also announced a public proceeding against Kumar on October 30, followed by the November 1 march and rally. Delhi traders, through the Chamber of Trade and Industry, asked for the rally to be postponed until after November 10, citing festive-season disruption, and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said on October 26 the bloc would discuss the request. Delhi Police sources told ANI on October 27 that permission for the Ramlila Maidan rally had not been withdrawn.
What the court and the Election Commission say
The Supreme Court on October 27 deferred hearing pleas against Kumar and Election Commission decisions during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, giving petitioners, including Gandhi, 10 days to respond to the Election Commission's affidavit, with the next hearing likely on November 17, after the Diwali vacation. In its affidavit, filed late on October 26, the Commission argued that a Chief Election Commissioner cannot be removed except in the manner and on grounds identical to ousting a Supreme Court judge, that any attempt to restrain the Commissioner's functioning would be contrary to law, and that the three disputed revision orders were unanimous decisions, not Kumar acting alone. The court has deferred, not decided, the merits, and the voter-deletion claims remain contested allegations. The Youth Congress, in its response to criticism, turned attention to the BJP, raising the Ankita Bhandari murder case in Uttarakhand, an allegation the sources reviewed did not independently establish.
The takeaway
Stripped of the noise, two separate questions are now tangled together: whether a protest video crossed a line on women's safety, and whether the Election Commission's voter-roll revision was lawful. The first question was answered, in practice, by deletion. The second will be answered, if at all, in court on November 17, and on the streets of Delhi on November 1.
Watch: NDTV reports on the Youth Congress deleting its controversial protest video after backlash.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Movement Proposition (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
Sources: NDTV, October 27, 2026; Outlook India; The Hindu, Supreme Court hearing.