Cockroach Janta Party leaders detained at Jantar Mantar as India's election chief protests grow

Police in New Delhi on Tuesday, 13 October, detained about 20 volunteers of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), including its leaders Ashutosh Ranka, Saurav Das and Ajinkya Shinde, after they climbed a gate and barricades into the grounds of the Jantar Mantar observatory, Reuters reported via Business Recorder. The arrests followed a weekend in which police detained thousands of protesters and blocked the movement's planned demonstration with tens of thousands of security personnel, ARY News reported.

The protesters want India's Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, to resign over a revision of the voter lists that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Why they are protesting

• The revision began last year and has removed more than 130 million names from India's voter lists: 28 million listed as dead, 63 million as having moved and 30 million as untraceable.
• Opposition parties say the deletions fall hardest on Muslim and other minority voters, who are less likely to vote BJP.
• Last month the Indian Express reported that Kumar's two deputies had raised internal concerns about the revisions, registration procedures and digital systems. The protests grew after that report.

The Election Commission denies favouring any party and says voters who were wrongly removed can enrol again. The BJP accuses its rivals of undermining democracy by questioning a legitimate process.

Who the CJP are

The Cockroach Janta Party is a youth movement founded by Abhijeet Dipke that has protested over government school buildings and jobs. Earlier this year a weeks-long sit-in by its supporters at Jantar Mantar was followed by the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over exam paper leaks.

Delhi Police now say Jantar Mantar is no longer an official protest site and that three new venues have been named. Dipke replied on X: "You cannot denotify the resistance." Blocked from the main site, protesters have switched to flash demonstrations elsewhere in the capital, and student leader Neha Bora was detained after slipping through a police cordon. Opposition parties have held near-daily protests of their own this month.