India deploys thousands of police ahead of election protest

On Friday, October 9, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) claimed that authorities in India had detained thousands of its members in a nationwide crackdown ahead of a protest planned for the following day. The youth-led movement accused India's authorities of mass arrests, alleging that at least 10,000 people were detained across the country on Thursday alone.

CJP spokesperson Deepak Baliyan and activists from various regions were among those arrested, with some released later in the evening after their detainment. The CJP founder, Abhijeet Dipke, alleged that members from Telangana were arrested on a train in Bhopal, while students from Pune, en route to Delhi, were also detained. CJP leaders likened the incidents to a state of emergency, similar to the one imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, which suspended civil liberties and led to the imprisonment of opposition members and censorship of media.

The last time an emergency decree was issued in India was during Indira Gandhi's rule in the mid-1970s. In response to the alleged detentions, CJP spokesperson Saurav Das accused the Modi government of being "at war with its own young citizens." Meanwhile, leading the protest, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke vowed to march to Jantar Mantar in Delhi on Saturday, despite the alleged intimidation.

The protest aims to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a controversial revision of voter lists, which has led to the removal of around 130 million names from electoral rolls. Opposition parties and their student units have been holding near-daily demonstrations against Kumar, with around 130 million names struck off the lists.

Opposition leaders and critics accuse Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using the exercise to secure future electoral gains and question the independence of the Election Commission of India (ECI). The ECI and the BJP deny the allegations.