India’s emerging Gen Z political movement, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), has accused authorities of launching a nationwide campaign of mass detentions targeting its members and allies ahead of a major anti-government protest planned for the weekend in New Delhi.
The youth-led group, which originated as a satirical online campaign in May, has transformed into a significant political force. Alongside mainstream opposition parties and student organizations, the CJP has been staging nearly daily demonstrations. The protesters are demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a highly controversial nationwide revision of voter lists.
A massive march is scheduled to take place on Saturday at Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in the capital. Ahead of the event, CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka stated on social media platform X on Thursday that "at least 10,000" people from the CJP, student groups, affiliated grassroots organizations, and political parties have been detained across the country. Videos circulating online showed activists being loaded into police vans, including a group of students from Pune who were intercepted and taken away in a bus to an undisclosed location while traveling to the Delhi protest.
The controversy stems from a "special intensive revision" of voter rolls conducted across most of India's states and federal territories. The process has resulted in the removal of more than 130 million names—a figure larger than the entire populations of countries like Japan or Mexico. While millions of citizens have appealed the deletions, opposition parties allege the purge disproportionately targets their supporters, while voters likely to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party have been preserved or added. The government and the election commission have strongly rejected these claims, maintaining that the review is a routine process designed to eliminate duplicate and ineligible entries.
The mounting unrest presents a fresh political challenge for Modi midway through his third term. Earlier this year, similar CJP-led demonstrations over exam paper leaks forced the resignation of his education minister. Tensions have continued to rise across the country. In the technology hub of Bengaluru on Thursday, hundreds of CJP youth supporters gathered to protest, holding signs reading "Every name counts, Every vote matters" and "Stop the Murder of Democracy." Khushi Shrivastava, a 22-year-old architecture student who attended the rally, remarked, "I think voting right is the most basic point of democracy … People who actually want to vote, who actually care about the future of India, they are just being (denied) voting rights."
The crackdown has also targeted mainstream political figures. On Wednesday, the opposition Congress party accused the police of using "brute force" to briefly detain party leader Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Vadra, and several other lawmakers as they attempted to reach the Jantar Mantar protest site. The Delhi Police dismissed the claims, stating they were being used to "defame" the force, while BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia described the allegations as baseless.
Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday, Bhatia said the claims were "being levelled by an irresponsible, anarchist opposition" and contained "not an iota of evidence." In preparation for Saturday's demonstration, police have heavily barricaded the area around Jantar Mantar.
