India’s influential Gen Z-led “cockroach” protesters are set to get back on the streets – this time seeking electoral reforms and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of manipulating voter rolls.
A pressure group which began as an online satirical movement, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) recorded its first major victory in July when it forced education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign after weeks of protests calling for education reforms.
The CJP leaders have now called upon their supporters to gather at the sprawling Shivaji Park grounds in Mumbai city at 4pm local time (10:30 GMT) on Friday “to save democracy” and seek CEC Kumar’s resignation.
CEC Kumar or the Election Commission have not responded to the calls for his resignation from the CJP or opposition parties. They have also not responded to allegations of vote theft or elections being rigged. The BBC has asked them for comment.
In recent days, the CJP has shared a number of messages, reels and posters with their 25 million followers on Instagram and more than 400,000 followers on X, asking them to turn up in large numbers to “strengthen the voice of democracy”.
The Mumbai protest, it said in a press statement on Thursday, is the first in a series of demonstrations it plans to hold across the country in October, culminating in a rally in the capital, Delhi.
CJP say Mumbai police have denied them permission, but security is being tightened in the city as large crowds are expected to gather, with some of the state’s main opposition parties also pledging support, external.
The CJP called the protest after last week’s report in The Indian Express, external that CEC Kumar’s two fellow election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had formally objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders they said had been issued without their knowledge.
The differences were reported to be mostly over a controversial revision of the country’s electoral rolls known as the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, which began last year.
