India's Cockroach Movement Resumes Protests, Demands Election Commissioner Resign

India's youth-led Cockroach movement relaunched nationwide protests on Friday, with hundreds gathering in Mumbai to demand the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Authorities had denied the group, formally known as the Cockroach Janta party (CJP), permission to protest at Mumbai's Shivaji park, but founder Abhijeet Dipke said the demonstration would go ahead regardless. Dipke framed the agitation as a continuation of India's independence struggle, invoking Mahatma Gandhi and asking whether the British had ever permitted him to protest.

At the centre of the unrest is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a process overseen by Kumar that has removed tens of millions of people from India's electoral register. A report in the Indian Express alleged irregularities and internal concerns about the effort to revise and 'purify' the rolls, and large numbers of those deleted are now challenging their removal. Opposition politicians and civil society groups have alleged the SIR forms part of a broader manipulation of the electoral system to benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).

In Mumbai, protesters amid a heavy police presence described the vote as a fundamental right under attack. Deesha, a 22-year-old student activist, said millions had lost their votes and were no longer recognised as citizens, calling for Kumar's resignation and the reversal of SIR. Janvi Upadhyay, 18, said the movement had awakened India's young people and warned Kumar he was 'definitely next' after the education minister was forced out in July.

The crackdown in Delhi was far more severe. Thousands of police were deployed to the Jantar Mantar protest site, a dozen metro stations were closed and an internet shutdown was imposed. Hundreds of people who turned out were forced into police buses, and the mass detention of at least 700 people — including civil society leaders and opposition politicians — drew outrage, with detainees leaning out of bus windows to accuse officers of stripping them of their democratic rights.

The CJP began as online satire before growing into a significant challenge to the Narendra Modi government, with weeks of protests in Delhi culminating in the education minister's resignation in July. The group subsequently declared it would remain active as a 'pressure group' on issues of education and democracy, and Dipke said the Mumbai rally would launch a nationwide movement with further protests planned in Delhi, Goa, Kolkata and Bengaluru. The election commission has denied wrongdoing over the SIR, though officials were directed to expedite registration of newly eligible voters and those wrongly omitted from the rolls.

Opposition parties said they would launch their own nationwide protest movement calling for Kumar's resignation, and all opposition lawmakers plan to march to the election commission office in Delhi next week. The convergence of the youth-led CJP and established opposition parties signals the controversy over the voter rolls is set to intensify in the coming days.