India’s “Cockroach” youth movement has called for fresh protests Friday in Mumbai, the country’s financial hub, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over contentious revisions to voter lists.
The movement, which began as an online campaign and now calls itself the Cockroach Janta Party, forced India’s education minister to resign earlier this year after a series of street protests. Friday’s rally in Mumbai is intended to launch a new wave of demonstrations across the country.
Separately, a coalition of student and civil society groups was scheduled to gather Friday at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in New Delhi, to press the same demand.
The protests have intensified scrutiny of India’s Election Commission, which oversees elections across the country.
Critics and opposition parties accuse the commission of altering voter registrations in ways they say could benefit the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The commission and the government deny any wrongdoing.
The Indian Express reported last month that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders involving voter registration, voter deletions and restorations, appeals and the management of electoral-roll databases.
According to the report, the two commissioners raised concerns about decisions they said were made without their knowledge, including changes involving new-voter registration and access to electoral-roll databases.
The Election Commission disputed the characterization of the disagreements, saying differing views and comments were part of normal deliberations and that its major decisions had the approval of the full commission.
India’s Election Commission consists of the chief election commissioner and two election commissioners of equal rank. Under the 2023 law governing the commission, matters on which the members differ are decided by majority vote.
The voter-list revisions began in the eastern state of Bihar in June 2025 under a process known as Special Intensive Revision, or SIR. The exercise has since expanded to 30 states and federally administered territories, according to The Indian Express.
The newspaper reported that more than 13 crore, or 130 million, names were struck from draft voter rolls during the nationwide rollout.
The revisions have drawn criticism over the documents required to establish voters’ eligibility.
Critics say the requirements could make it difficult for some eligible voters to remain on the rolls, while the Election Commission says the process is intended to identify duplicate and ineligible entries and ensure that eligible voters are included.
The commission has rejected allegations that the revisions are politically motivated. Opposition parties and activists have continued to accuse Kumar of political bias and say the process could exclude legitimate voters and benefit Modi’s party. The BJP and Election Commission have rejected those allegations.
The Cockroach movement emerged earlier this year amid anger among young people over unemployment and examination-paper leaks. Led by Abhijeet Dipke, it gained national attention through protests over alleged irregularities involving examination papers and later expanded its campaign to issues including government accountability and democratic institutions.
The movement’s campaign has since broadened beyond education, with the group calling for greater accountability from government institutions and now making the Election Commission a central focus of its protests.
DAILYSABAH
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