Cockroach Janta Party protests in New Delhi, demands Chief Election Commissioner's resignation

India's Cockroach Janta Party has called for a nationwide march on New Delhi on Saturday after its ultimatum demanding the resignation of the country's election chief was ignored. The party, which grew from a youth protest in May, plans to gather at Jantar Mantar, the capital's historic protest site.

In the days leading up to the march, authorities have cracked down on demonstrators. Police detained students, opposition leaders, and ordinary citizens. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were among those arrested. The CJP's founder, Abhijeet Dipke, urged mass turnout, claiming that arrests would only galvanise more protestors.

The controversy centers on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, who was appointed in 2025 by a panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. An investigation by the Indian Express revealed that fellow commissioners raised 14 formal objections to the Commission's handling of voter rolls. They argued that the Commission had acted against their advice and that the changes were unauthorized. The Commission has removed more than 130 million names from the roll, a move critics say goes beyond correcting errors and risks disenfranchising voters.

The Special Intensive Revision is a nationwide re‑verification of the electoral rolls, intended to remove dead names, duplicates and illegal foreign entries. The scale of the purge—reducing the 970 million eligible voters to 840 million—raises questions about its fairness. The CJP's protest, rooted in a court comment that labelled unemployed youth as “cockroaches”, highlights deep frustration over unemployment and education gaps. The march on Saturday will test the government's willingness to address these grievances and could signal a broader challenge to the legitimacy of India's electoral system.