Cockroach Party leaders detained in Delhi protest — SkimNews
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- Abhijeet Dipke and CJP co-leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were detained on their flight from Mumbai on Saturday and taken to an undisclosed location, according to the group; designated successor Ajinkya Shinde urged supporters to push on in a video.
- Delhi Police refused permission for the protest at Jantar Mantar, deploying tens of thousands of security personnel, barricading roads, cancelling trains to major stations and closing dozens of metro stations from Friday night ahead of the rally.
- Cockroach Janta Party is demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him and the Election Commission of manipulating voter lists to favor PM Narendra Modi's BJP — claims both the commission and BJP deny.
- The Election Commission's nationwide electoral-roll update has drawn controversy, with tens of thousands of people alleging they were wrongly removed; the commission says the exercise only weeds out dead, duplicate or ineligible voters.
- Buses packed with detained protesters were driven away from the protest site as demonstrators including student activist Neha Bora and protester Sabika Muzaffar (interviewed by the BBC minutes before her arrest) tried to approach Jantar Mantar.
- The movement, begun in May by Dipke — a former Aam Aadmi Party worker and recent Boston University master's graduate — stems from Chief Justice Surya Kant's comment likening jobless youth to "cockroaches"; it scored its first win in July when Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.
Why it matters: With crucial state elections approaching, the pre-emptive detention of three top leaders on their flight and a capital-wide lockdown underscore authorities' alarm over a youth movement that has already toppled one minister. The CJP's targeting of the Chief Election Commissioner's tenure puts fresh public pressure on an institution defending a nationwide voter-roll update that opposition parties frame as biased toward the ruling BJP.
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