Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke before a Delhi protest. It demands the election chief resign.
Police in New Delhi detained the founder of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party, Abhijeet Dipke, and dozens of others Saturday before a planned protest demanding the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner, as authorities locked down large parts of the capital to stop the rally.
Indian TV channels reported that officers met Dipke at New Delhi airport after he arrived from Mumbai and asked him to call off the protest, which authorities had banned. Party leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were also detained after landing, the movement said in a statement.
Nearly 30,000 security personnel were deployed, Al Jazeera reported. Authorities closed 57 metro stations from Friday night, canceled several long-distance trains and suspended mobile internet within 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) of the protest area until Saturday night, the Indian news agency ANI reported. India’s Supreme Court said Friday that some trains must still run and that a blanket closure of metro stations is unlikely. Police did not authorize a rally at Jantar Mantar, the usual protest site, saying the request came too late and that the party had broken undertakings given during earlier protests. They warned of a forceful response if the ban is violated.
The party says at least 10,000 people have been detained across India, a claim that has not been independently verified. Al Jazeera reported that students traveling to Delhi were pulled from trains and buses, and others were placed under house arrest in their home cities. Neha Bora, national president of the All India Students’ Association, said, “You can detain the people, you cannot detain the movement.” Dipke compared the restrictions to the 1975 Emergency, when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended civil liberties.
Protesters want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign over a revision of the voter lists that has removed more than 130 million names. The Election Commission says the exercise removes duplicate and ineligible voters and aims to keep “foreign illegal immigrants” from voting. Critics say it disproportionately affects minorities and other marginalized groups. The protests escalated after The Indian Express reported that Kumar’s two deputies had formally raised concerns at least 14 times in 10 months. The Election Commission and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party deny the allegations, and the BJP says the opposition is misleading the country because it cannot win elections.
The party began online as political satire in May after Chief Justice Surya Kant called unemployed youth “cockroaches,” according to Al Jazeera. Protests in July led Modi’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, to resign over exam paper leaks. The latest demonstrations come ahead of state elections in early 2027, including in Uttar Pradesh, which the BJP governs. Organizers have billed Saturday’s rally as a protest to “Save Democracy.”
This report is based on information from Al Jazeera, AFP, Reuters and ANI.