Ashutosh Ranka/XLeaders of India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) were detained early on Tuesday after they entered a heavily-guarded protest site and chanted slogans demanding the country’s election chief resign over a controversial revision of electoral rolls.
Party founder Abhijeet Dipke shared a video showing Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das being taken away by police from Jantar Mantar, a historic Delhi observatory popular for protests.
Footage showed the two – along with others – climbing over police barricades before chanting slogans while holding the Indian flag.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s opponents allege the voter list revision benefits his party, a charge it and the Election Commission reject.
Police have stepped up security across Delhi as demonstrators challenge restrictions on where protests can be held.
Early on Tuesday, Dipke, Das and Ranka all shared videos showing Das and Ranka entering Jantar Mantar.
“You cannot denotify the resistance,” Dipke wrote on X.
Das also posted a message declaring that the site had been “reclaimed” and that they were being detained.
It was not immediately clear where police had taken the leaders.
Ranka later appeared on an Instagram live broadcast from a police bus alongside other detainees where they appeared cheerful and said they would not back down.
ReutersThe detentions came a day after the federal home ministry announced that Jantar Mantar, long associated with public protests in Delhi, would no longer be a designated protest venue. Authorities instead identified three alternative locations where demonstrations can be held with permission.
Before the decision, the CJP had met Delhi Police officials to seek permission for a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar and had warned that it would announce further demonstrations if it received no response.
“30 mins after we went to Delhi Police asking for a date when we can go to Jantar Mantar, Jantar Mantar was de-notified as a protest site,” Ranka had earlier posted on X.
Most of the party’s leadership has been in Delhi in recent days. Dipke, however, had travelled to his hometown in Maharashtra after the death of his grandmother. He was among several CJP leaders detained ahead of a planned demonstration on Saturday and was released the next day.
The CJP had called for a protest at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, but authorities imposed extensive security restrictions across the capital to prevent demonstrators from reaching the site.
Several metro stations were closed, train services were disrupted and thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed.
Over the weekend, the police detained and released thousands of people, including several journalists. Some videos and photos from the protest show police dragging people, including women, by force and pushing them into buses.
Getty ImagesSeparately, opposition parties held a march in Delhi on Monday from Connaught Place – a major shopping district in the heart of the capital – to the Supreme Court.
The Congress, India’s main opposition party, also petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday, challenging the Election Commission’s voter revision exercise, which has resulted in tens of millions of names being removed from electoral rolls.
Critics say the exercise risks excluding eligible voters and making it harder for them to prove their eligibility.
Anger over the revision exercise intensified after The Indian Express reported that Kumar had disregarded concerns raised by the two other election commissioners over changes to voter registration. The Election Commission has said its decisions were unanimous.
The current protests follow student-led demonstrations earlier this year over exam irregularities and demands for education reforms.
The CJP led weeks of action that culminated in the resignation of federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The group began as online satire after India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant compared some unemployed young people to cockroaches during a court hearing in May. He later said his remarks had been misinterpreted, but the comments had already become a rallying cry for young people seeking change.
After the summer protests, the CJP evolved into a pressure group, tapping into wider anger over unemployment, exam irregularities and government accountability.
