Indian security forces detained demonstrators in New Delhi and Mumbai on Friday as the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party and allied student and opposition groups launched protests demanding the resignation of the country’s chief election commissioner over a contested revision of voter rolls.
Hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel surrounded a barricaded protest site in the center of the capital and bundled demonstrators into buses as they arrived, according to reports from the scene. The movement, known as the CJP, had warned the government last week that it would start nationwide protests unless the election commission chief, Gyanesh Kumar, stepped down.
The CJP began as an online campaign and takes its name from the cockroach, embracing an insult once directed at young activists. It forced India’s education minister to resign in July through street protests, and its Mumbai rally on Friday was meant to open a new round of demonstrations nationwide, according to the Associated Press. Student and civil society groups were separately gathering at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi’s designated protest ground, Reuters reported, with the CJP planning to expand the campaign in the coming days.
At the center of the dispute is the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, an exercise that began in Bihar in June 2025 and has since spread across 30 states and territories. The commission says the revision is meant to remove duplicate and ineligible entries while keeping legitimate voters on the rolls; so far it has struck off some 130 million names, according to the BBC. Opposition parties and activists say the process risks disenfranchising eligible voters, and they have accused the commission of working in the governing party’s favor.
Mr. Kumar and the commission have rejected accusations that the process is being manipulated for political ends. But the controversy has also moved inside his own institution, with the other two election commissioners reported to have raised objections to how deletions were carried out.
The CJP’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, has led demonstrations for months, first over alleged irregularities in national examinations and now over the voter rolls. Friday’s detentions in the capital signaled that the government intends to meet the new campaign with force: protesters were put onto buses before the gatherings could grow, and the CJP has said its planned nationwide protests will proceed.