India’s ‘cockroach’ protesters are back – this time asking poll chief to resign

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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.

The CJP called the protest after last week's report in The Indian Express 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.

The Election Commission says the exercise is intended to remove duplicate and ineligible entries – and so far, 130 million names have been struck off the voters' list.

But opposition parties and activists have alleged that many of those are eligible voters and that the process is being manipulated by CEC Kumar to favour Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during elections. Both the BJP and the Election Commission have rejected the accusations.

Last week's Indian Express report said the two commissioners had also been raising questions over the integrity of the voter database, changes to the way new voters are enrolled and the security of the electoral rolls itself.

The EC defended its way of working and said in a statement that "differing views" were part of the "decision-making process" and that all the decisions were taken unanimously.

But the revelations sparked a furore, with opposition leaders demanding Kumar's resignation.

Leader of the opposition and senior Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly accused the commission of "stealing votes from the opposition" and said those officers who were indulging in "vote theft" were "traitors".

Another senior opposition leader, Mamata Banerjee, has demanded the CEC's arrest.

On Wednesday, the INDIA alliance – an opposition grouping that includes nearly two dozen parties and has both Gandhi and Banerjee as members – said they would also organise protest rallies across the country in the coming days. On 6 October, all opposition MPs plan to march to the Election Commission office in Delhi, they added.

Many of the opposition parties have also pledged support to the protest in Mumbai.

Despite Mumbai police denying them permission to hold the protest, Dipke has insisted that they will assemble and if the police arrest them, they will launch a "Jail Bharo Andolan (fill the prison movement)".

In a short animation video posted on its social media accounts on Wednesday, the CJP said it was a citizen's right to be able to vote and to not allow an eligible voter to cast their vote was an "issue of serious concern in a democracy".

"We demand transparency and accountability from the commission and want the CEC to resign. This is not a fight for one party, it's for free and fair elections and every citizen's right to vote," it added.