Indian police detained more than 1,000 protesters, opposition politicians, lawyers and journalists across New Delhi on Saturday as authorities imposed a sweeping lockdown to stop a youth-led demonstration demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The satirical Cockroach Janta Party and allied groups had called supporters to Jantar Mantar, the capital’s designated protest site, to protest a Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls that critics say has removed tens of millions of names and favors Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Instead, columns of police and paramilitary personnel blocked approach roads, halted trains into the city and shut dozens of metro stations while mobile internet was suspended in parts of the central business district.
Leaders intercepted before the rally
Police detained Cockroach founder Abhijeet Dipke and coordinators Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka after their flight from Mumbai landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport, party members said. Dipke livestreamed part of the confrontation aboard the aircraft before officers removed the trio. Al Jazeera reported that more than 1,000 people were held, including YouTuber and government critic Dhruv Rathee, student union leader Neha Bora, lawyer Prashant Bhushan and politicians Yogendra Yadav.
Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was taken into custody while sitting on a protest at South Avenue, near lawmakers’ housing, and driven around the city in a prison van, she told reporters by phone from a police station. Former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was detained after marching from Kerala House, a short walk from Jantar Mantar, alongside Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders who had spent the night there to evade an overnight cordon.
What the protesters want
The Cockroach movement, which began online and forced the resignation of Modi’s education minister after exam-paper leak protests in July, accuses the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to shape outcomes through the voter-list revision. The Indian Express reported that Kumar’s deputies had questioned deletions totaling about 130 million entries nationwide, including names struck for duplication, death or failure to verify identity.
Commission officials say the exercise is a statutory cleanup. Protesters call it disenfranchisement on a scale that could alter state and national results. Saturday’s gathering was timed to keep pressure on Kumar after authorities on Friday shut 57 metro stations and canceled trains in anticipation of the rally.
Sunday test
Despite the crackdown, the Cockroach Janta Party said it would return to Jantar Mantar on Sunday for what it branded “Jantar Mantar 2.0.” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused the government of using detention to silence dissent, while police insisted they were enforcing court orders and preventing serious disruption.
Delhi Metro later reopened all stations, but the preventive arrests left the Saturday demonstration largely stillborn. The next flashpoint is whether Sunday’s planned assembly draws enough people to overcome another layered security response — and whether courts intervene on transit curbs or mass detention. For now, Kumar remains in office, and the revised rolls stand.