India’s ‘cockroach’ party youth movement has threatened to launch nationwide protests unless the country’s chief election officer does not resign by Saturday. Founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), Abhijeet Dipke, announced on Friday that protests would begin in Mumbai on October 2 – if Gyanesh Kumar does not step down. The CJP, a satirical outfit born on Instagram in May after India’s chief justice compared unemployed young Indians to “cockroaches” and “parasites”, has shaken the staunchly conservative government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On Thursday, the group demanded that Kumar quit within 48 hours, following a newspaper report linking him to altered voter lists. Opposition parties say the lists have been manipulated to benefit Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Wednesday, the Indian Express newspaper reported that two election commissioners had raised questions or voiced concern with Kumar at least 14 times in 10 months, mostly over the process of updating voter lists that began last year.
The main opposition Congress party announced protest marches on state election offices across India on Friday, demanding Kumar’s arrest, his removal and an independent review of decisions and voter-list changes made under him. Opposition parties have long accused the commission of deleting the names of millions of voters without warning and adding new voters without verification to favour the BJP. The Election Commission of India said that “differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution” and that all its actions were lawful.
The BJP has defended the commission, accusing the opposition of a smear campaign because it keeps losing elections. CJP-led protests in July forced the resignation of Modi’s education minister over exam-paper leaks, one of the prime minister’s biggest political setbacks since coming to power in 2014.
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