'Cockroach' protesters demand India's election chief resign over voter list changes
Opposition parties and activists say the voter-roll revision could exclude millions of eligible voters, while the Election Commission denies wrongdoing.
- On Friday, thousands of protesters gathered at Mumbai's Shivaji Park to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, defying police restrictions over alleged electoral roll irregularities.
- An Indian Express investigation revealed that election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi filed at least 14 objections over 10 months regarding the Special Intensive Revision process, which critics claim disenfranchised millions of voters.
- Voter lists in some regions shrank by 30 percent during the SIR exercise, with over 3.4 million names removed in Madhya Pradesh alone; critics allege the Bharatiya Janata Party benefited from these deletions.
- Coordinating with the INDIA alliance, the Congress scheduled nationwide protests for October 6 as authorities report detentions and criminal charges against demonstrators for alleged defacement of the CEC's residence.
- Led by Abhijeet Dipke, the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party previously forced India's education minister to resign and now positions the voter-roll dispute as a democratic challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
148 Articles
148 Articles
‘Cockroach’ movement rallies again
India’s “Cockroach” youth movement yesterday called for new protests in Mumbai to demand the resignation of the chief election commissioner over a contentious revision of voter lists.The movement, which began as an online campaign and now calls itself the Cockroach Janata Party, forced India’s educa
The protest organized by the political-satiric group Cockroach Janta Party (People's Party of Boats) began in Mumbai to demand the resignation of the president of the Indian electoral commission, Gyanesh Kumar: it is reported by several local media,... (ANSA)
A survey published last month by the daily The Indian Express reported irregularities during a major revision of the electoral lists, which led to the removal of millions of names. The Electoral Commission (ECI), long considered one of the country's most respected institutions often called "the largest democracy in the world", rejected any accusation of irregularity in this process. Opposition officials accused Gyanese Kumar, the president of th…
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