Chennai:
The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), the youth-led outfit that spearheaded protests over the NEET paper leak and helped build pressure for accountability, is set to take its anti-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) campaign to Chennai, with organisers planning a 24-hour protest despite police denying permission.
The protest, dubbed "Chennai's Jantar Mantar 2.0", is scheduled to begin at 4 pm this evening near Rajarathinam Stadium in Egmore and continue until 4 pm tomorrow. The organisers are calling on young people, including what they describe as Gen Z, Gen Alpha and Gen Beta, to join the agitation.
Scrapping the SIR of electoral rolls and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar are among the key demands.
"They sought permission, we have denied," a senior police officer told NDTV.
However, sources familiar with the organisers' plans said the CJP intends to go ahead with the protest for the full 24 hours, setting up a potential confrontation with the police.
Among those expected to attend are the CJP's South India coordinator Vijay Reddy Mallangi, Kerala Rajya Sabha MP AA Rahim, who also heads the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), and DYFI general secretary Srijan Bhattacharya.
The agitation comes amid a nationwide controversy over the SIR.
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Election Commission data removed 13.39 crore electors from the voters list, placing them in categories including absent or untraceable, permanently shifted, dead and duplicate entries during the exercise.
The Commission has rejected allegations of manipulation, maintaining that the revision is intended to clean up electoral rolls and that eligible voters can seek inclusion through the prescribed process.
Tamil Nadu's SIR saw 97.38 lakh names removed initially, 27.53 lakh voters added and another 4.23 lakh deleted, resulting in a net reduction of 73.4 lakh electors. The revision preceded a change of guard, with Vijay's TVK winning 108 seats and ending the DMK's tenure in power.
The CJP's earlier agitation at Delhi's Jantar Mantar over examination irregularities drew attention to the NEET paper leak and demands for Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation. Pradhan subsequently resigned amid mounting pressure over the examination controversy.
However, the organisation has faced police action over its subsequent anti-SIR protests. Its leaders were arrested in Delhi, while Jantar Mantar was denotified as a designated protest site, restricting the movement's ability to organise demonstrations there.
The Supreme Court has also scrutinised the crackdown, directing the release of detained protesters without criminal antecedents and seeking responses from the Centre and Delhi Police over alleged police excesses.
The developments have added significance to the Chennai protest, where the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government faces a political balancing act.
TVK is part of the Congress-led INDIA bloc, which has opposed the SIR. Yet, as the ruling party in Tamil Nadu, TVK must also navigate its working relationship with the BJP-led Union government. On questions if ruling TVK benefitted from the SIR, the ruling party says it's a victim, claiming without the SIR it would have swept polls, winning a majority of its own.
A police crackdown could invite criticism that the state government is weakening the anti-SIR agitation, potentially helping the BJP politically. At the same time, the TVK government has maintained that protests require prior permission and cannot be held in violation of police restrictions.
On Sunday, the DMK, Tamil Nadu's principal Opposition party, extended support to CJP and student groups protesting against the SIR.
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The party has also criticised the Centre's handling of the agitation, though it remains unclear whether DMK leaders or cadres will join Thursday's protest.
With the organisers determined to go ahead and the police refusing permission, the demonstration could become a test of the TVK government's approach to anti-SIR protests - and its ability to reconcile its position within the INDIA bloc with its insistence on enforcing police restrictions.
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