Key Takeaways
- Indian police detained the head of the Cockroach Janta Party and thousands of protesters in New Delhi.
- The protest was against the Election Commissioner of India, following allegations of misconduct during voter-roll revision.
- More than 15,000 protesters have been detained, with calls for the ECI chief to step down.
Indian police detained the head of the Cockroach Janta Party, Abhijeet Dipke, and thousands of protesters in New Delhi on Saturday, as part of a major demonstration against the country’s Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar.
The protest, which is the culmination of weeks of opposition mobilisation, was aimed at addressing allegations of misconduct during a nationwide voter-roll revision by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
According to the CJP, more than 15,000 protesters have been detained, with Ajinkya Shinde, a CJP leader, stating that the number is significantly higher.
The CJP claims that the detained protesters are being denied access to their lawyers and cut off from all contact with others, with the group stating that the trio had been taken to an undisclosed location.
Protesters defied a massive security clampdown, with police detaining them as they attempted to march to the main Jantar Mantar protest site.
Calls for Kumar’s resignation have intensified, with opposition parties and critics alleging that the voter revision could disenfranchise millions of constituents and benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The ECI has rejected allegations of impropriety, stating that the revision was intended to remove duplicate and ineligible voters.
Ahead of the protest, authorities in the capital deployed thousands of police, closed dozens of metro stations, cancelled more than 200 trains, and temporarily shut down mobile internet around the protest site.
The demonstrations are widely seen as a reprise of the “cockroach” movement’s mass mobilisation in July, which led to the education minister stepping down over an examination scandal.
This time, protesters are demanding Kumar’s resignation and a halt to the voter revision exercise, presenting a fresh challenge for 76-year-old Modi during his third term in office.
They’re being denied access to their lawyers and cut off from all contact with others.
CJP statement, Cockroach Janta Party
More than 15,000 protesters have been detained.
Ajinkya Shinde, CJP leader
