Cockroach Janta Party Leads Growing Protests Against India’s Election Commission
Pressure is growing on India's election commission after a newspaper report raised questions about how voter list decisions were made.
NEW DELHI: The Cockroach Janta Party, a youth-led online movement, is getting ready for a big protest in the capital on Saturday. Its members want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to step down.
The anger began after a report by The Indian Express last month. The paper alleged that key decisions in a nationwide voter list revision were likely taken without the approval of two of the three election commissioners.
According to the report, those two commissioners raised formal objections more than a dozen times in the past 10 months. Under the rules, the three-member body should decide by consensus or by majority.
The Election Commission of India has rejected the claims. It says every decision was unanimous and fully legal.
The exercise in question is called the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR. It started in 2025. The commission says it helps find fake entries and stops “foreign illegal immigrants” from voting.
Media reports, citing commission data, say more than 133 million names have been left out of the draft rolls. That is about 15 percent of the electorate, and close to the population of Mexico.
The list includes duplicate entries and people who have died. The final number will only be clear after claims and objections are handled and the final rolls are published.
Opposition parties say real voters are being removed to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party. Critics also say poor and minority communities are being hit the hardest.
Members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have long claimed that many undocumented Muslim migrants from Bangladesh have entered the voter rolls. The party’s critics reject this as a way to target minorities.
Thousands of people have already come out on the streets. The Cockroach Janta Party began fresh protests on October 2 in Mumbai. It has millions of followers on social media.
The Congress party has also held rallies in New Delhi. Leader Rahul Gandhi was briefly detained on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
The movement has some history of success. In July, its campaign over exam irregularities forced the education minister to resign. Student leader Neha Bora says the group now wants the same result for the election chief.
Gyanesh Kumar is 62 and a retired civil servant. He took charge of the commission in February last year, and his term runs until January 2029.
This month, the Kerala government started a probe into corruption allegations against him that date back to 2006. Kumar has not been proven guilty of anything.
The courts are also watching. The Supreme Court has asked the government and the commission to explain their decisions on the revision. In May, it let the exercise go ahead but asked for safeguards to protect eligible voters. Another hearing is due next week.
For Modi, who is 76 and in his third term, this is another test. It comes only months after the student protests that cost his education minister his job.
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