India’s Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has vowed to continue its protest seeking the resignation of top election official even as the city sees more demonstrations for a second day with thousands of security personnel deployed and roads barricaded.
Abhijeet Dipke – who began the movement in May after India’s Chief Justice likened some jobless young people to “cockroaches” – and other leaders were arrested on arrival in Delhi on Saturday. They were freed on Sunday.
In his first comments after his release, Dipke said “the CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated”.
Media reports said, 7,000 protesters were detained and released on Saturday. Hundreds have also been detained on Sunday.
The CJP – which is not registered as a political party in India – is seeking electoral reforms just months before crucial state elections.
It has also demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of manipulating voters’ lists – which the Election Commission has denied.
On Sunday morning, Dipke and two other senior CJP leaders – Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka – were set free by a magistrate’s court “on the condition that they will not engage in breach of peace for one year”, police said.
After his release, Dipke posted on X, saying: “Modi, as PM, is an embarrassment to India.”
In another post, he said he was going to his village to attend his grandmother’s funeral who died around the time of his arrest yesterday. He added that “the CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated”.
Ranka and Das later told a press conference that the condition did not mean they couldn’t protest.
“Peaceful protest is our constitutional right and Jantar Mantar is a desginated protest site, so this doesn’t mean we can’t do peaceful protest,” Ranka said.
“Breach of peace is done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and CEC Gyanesh Kumar,” he said, adding that the CJP will continue to protest.
Saturday saw dramatic scenes as police officials boarded the flight to detain Dipke, Das and Ranka as their plane landed.
For a second day in a row on Sunday, much of central Delhi had roads barricaded and offices, shops and restaurants shut and internet services curtailed.
In Connaught Place, one of Delhi’s busiest shopping and entertainment hubs, there are rows upon rows of bright yellow police barricades, guarded by thousands of police and paramilitary personnel.
Protesters have returned to the area for a second consecutive day, but they are vastly outnumbered by security personnel and the BBC has witnessed many detentions.
Some were put into buses before being driven away. Some could be seen peering through the windows, others trying to push their way out while shouting “Gyanesh must go!” At one point, an entire bus reverberated with similar chants.
Every now and then, small groups of protesters managed to slip past the barricades and sprint through the streets, with police personnel chasing after them.
Within moments, they were surrounded, detained and, in some instances, dragged across the road, before being bundled into waiting buses.
The most dramatic moment came during the detention of activist Neha Bora who was chased by police personnel before being caught and detained.
Some protesters also said they were feeling a little uncertain. One of them told the BBC that the absence of the CJP’s top leadership on the ground was beginning to affect the movement’s momentum.
“Without them, we’re feeling a little lost,” the protester admitted, before quickly adding, “But that doesn’t mean we’ll stop our fight.”
The CJP had called for a protest on Saturday at Jantar Mantar – the road that the demonstrators had occupied for weeks earlier this summer seeking education reforms.
Police had refused them permission and the city was in a virtual lockdown with unprecedented curbs in place to thwart the protesters from reaching the venue.
At least 45 metro stations were closed and Delhi’s main railway stations were shut with major train services cancelled. Many protesters attempting to travel from outside were de-boarded en route.
Internet was also curtailed in central Delhi for the entire day.
After the police detained the CJP leaders and other activists, lawyers and students leaders, the CJP called for more protests on Sunday.
On Sunday, the Indian Supreme Court held a special hearing to deal with complaints of shutdowns and detentions.
The court ordered the government to restore internet and ensure that metro and rail services functioned normally, unless there was disturbance to public order. The court also said that free movement of people should be permitted and there should be no illegal detention.
Why are people protesting?
The row centres over a mammoth exercise to update electoral rolls nationwide – the commission has said it’s a routine exercise to weed out dead, duplicate or ineligible voters.
At least 130 million voter names have been purged from the rolls so far and in many states, the exercise has been shrouded in controversy, with tens of thousands of people alleging they have been wrongly removed.
The CJP – and opposition parties – accuse Kumar of favouring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the way the electoral rolls are being updated.
The Election Commission and the BJP have denied this.
The CJP first emerged as a major protest movement during weeks of demonstrations over the summer demanding education reforms and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The group stemmed from a joke made by Dipke in response to a remark by Chief Justice Surya Kant, who had likened jobless youngsters to “cockroaches”. He later said the comments were misinterpreted.
Dipke, who previously worked with the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), had just completed a master’s degree at Boston University when he posted a question on X in May: “What if all cockroaches come together?”
The post went viral, and the CJP was born. Momentum built around the movement which tapped into anger over unemployment, exam paper leaks and government accountability.
Their five-week-long protest ended in celebration for the protesters in July after the resignation of India’s education minister.