A CLUTCH of unforeseen events have combined to pose the existential crisis Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing from unemployed youth and young students, who after claiming his education minister’s scalp recently are now determined to win the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, India’s chief election commissioner whom they call “a vote thief”.
The first trigger for the youth to take to the streets came with the cancellation and corruption in the entrance exams to India’s medical colleges, which led to nationwide protests amid a dozen suicides by dejected students. Then the chief justice of India described unemployed youth as cockroaches, setting off a response nobody expected.
But the safety pin from the fraught grenade was pulled by Ritika Chopra, who broke the Indian Express story on Sept 23 about two election commissioners officially calling out their chief Gyanesh Kumar for alleged illegalities in deleting 130 million voters from the electoral rolls. The deletions altered the outcomes in Bihar and West Bengal polls to the BJP’s advantage.
That Modi is not prepared to allow the fall of a key pivot of his winning electoral machinery is evident from the paramilitary units he has mobilised, including from troubled Jammu and Kashmir and from platoons purposed to guard the frontier with Pakistan. They have been joined by the Delhi Police supported by street criminals from the Hindutva fold to jointly barricade New Delhi against protesters led largely by the recently formed Cockroach Janta Party.
On their part, the Cockroaches are predominantly from the Hindu middle classes, which makes it a tricky proposition for Modi to use the lethal force he deployed against the Shaheen Bagh anti-citizenship laws campaign in 2020. That movement, led chiefly by swathes of brave Muslim women in Delhi, was broken by a combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and brute force that coincided with President Donald Trump’s visit to Gujarat. Trump lost the election and Joe Biden won it, only for Trump to stage a comeback, while two Muslim student activists, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, picked up in the crackdown during his India visit six years ago, have marked time in prison.
The Cockroach movement has gained credibility by underscoring its key objectives that Indians have been dreaming of.
Last week, Khalid, detained without trial under draconian anti-terror laws, won the 2026 Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk for the Asia and Pacific region, presented by the Ireland-based Front Line Defenders. It’s difficult to see the crass brutality of a combined force of Delhi Police and Hindutva squads visiting the current crop of protesters, even though they have attacked young women in particular several times. The protests have created an extremely critical moment for the Modi establishment and for the opposition, represented prominently by the feisty young woman leader Neha Bora from the left flank of national politics. The wide political support has added heft to the collective battle for Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.
There has been some quibbling in the opposition ranks, principally between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress, about who is more committed to the students’ cause, but this has more to do with the political chance both are eyeing in Punjab, where they face each other in elections early next year. To be fair, the campaign against ‘vote theft’ began as Rahul Gandhi’s battle in mid-2023, when two laws were enacted that would be considered scandalous and unacceptable in any functioning democracy. Modi changed the mechanism that chose the poll chief. He replaced the chief justice of India from the troika that chose the poll chief with his cabinet minister, making the opposition’s presence meaningless. He also gave his handpicked election chief lifelong immunity from legal challenges for his duty in holding elections. The move paid off, with the poll body ignoring Modi’s communally polarising campaign and money power in the 2024 elections, without which he would perhaps have not got the 240 seats that were still 32 short of a majority.
The Cockroach movement has gained credibility by underscoring its key objectives that Indians have been dreaming of. No chief justice shall be granted a Rajya Sabha seat as a post-retirement reward, it declared, the reference being to the reward going to the chief justice who gave the controversial Ayodhya judgement. The Cockroach agenda offered a dire warning to the poll chief. “If any legitimate vote is deleted, the chief election commissioner shall be arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, as taking away voting rights is ‘no less than terrorism’.”
The Cockroaches are committed to women getting 50 per cent reservation (instead of the 33pc promised at present) without increasing the strength of parliament. They want 50pc of all cabinet positions to be reserved for women by law. TV channels seen as loyal to Modi should be disbanded. “All media houses owned by the Gautam Adani Group and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries shall have their licences cancelled to make way for independent media. Bank accounts of ‘Godi media anchors’ shall be investigated.”
To political parties like the Congress, which has suffered a slew of defections to the BJP, the Cockroaches have offered relief. “Any member of the legislative assembly (MLA) or member of parliament (MP) who defects from one party to another shall be barred from contesting elections and holding public office for 20 years.” On its part, the Cockroaches promised to remain answerable under the RTI Act and refuse to accept any anonymous donations.
It’s a given that much of the Cockroach agenda gestated in years of Rahul Gandhi’s critical campaigns. But is it helpful to squabble with each other when the idea is to seize the moment at this fraught juncture for Indian democracy? Mistrusting each other ended disastrously in Bihar and West Bengal for the INDIA group. Rahul sees Modi and key aides facing the law soon. To pursue the wish, he could trust the newly minted youth power and less so his party. The ‘party’ has been the bane of the Congress since Nehru’s time.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2026