Cockroach movement sets deadline for election chief

India's youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has set Saturday as a deadline for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign. The party warns it will launch nationwide protests on October 2 if Kumar refuses to step down. Founder Abhijeet Dipke announced the movement's campaign will begin in Mumbai on Gandhi Jayanti, spreading to cities across the country.

This ultimatum stems from allegations of significant internal disputes within the Election Commission during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Dipke stated on Friday that if Kumar does not resign by tomorrow, the CJP will commence its nationwide protest in Mumbai, advancing to other cities. The organization had previously given Kumar 48 hours to resign and threatened an indefinite sit-in in New Delhi if its demand was ignored.

The CJP has launched an "Election Commission Thik Karo" campaign, calling for an investigation into electoral-roll decisions and questioning the safeguards for voter registration, deletion, and data management. The dispute intensified after it was revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally raised objections 14 times over 10 months to decisions concerning electoral rolls, including registration of new voters, deletion and restoration of names, and changes to Form 6.

Some objections indicated that these decisions were made without the commissioners' knowledge. The CJP also raised concerns about centralizing access to electoral-roll systems in New Delhi and approached the Cabinet Secretary regarding changes to the commission's technology infrastructure. The Election Commission denies these allegations, stating that differing views and observations are part of normal institutional deliberation and that its final decisions are unanimous and legally valid.

Opposing parties have seized on these disclosures, renewing accusations of unfair electoral-roll revisions. Opposition parties have marched to election offices in several state capitals, demanding Kumar's removal and an independent examination of decisions made during the revision. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has defended the commission, rejecting allegations of manipulation and emphasizing that the final SIR decisions were reached unanimously by all three commissioners.