India’s Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), a youth movement that takes its self-deprecating name from an insult by an Indian official, said on Thursday that police have begun mass arrests of CJP activists to stave off a mass demonstration planned in New Delhi on Saturday.
The CJP began as a sarcastic political joke after Indian Chief Justice Surya Kant compared the nation’s restless youth to “cockroaches” who spend too much time on social media. The official symbol of the party is a defiant cockroach wearing sunglasses.
The CJP grew popular with restless Indian youth – who do, indeed, spend a great deal of time on social media. The party exploded in popularity and influence during a massive nationwide scandal over entrance exams for medical school in June 2026.
The Cockroach movement is currently demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, who has made some controversial decisions about voter registration.
Kumar, who was appointed to his post in 2025 over the objections of the political opposition, was tasked with supervising the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), an effort to re-verify all of India’s registered voters, clean up errors, and remove people who should not be allowed to vote, including illegal aliens.
This was a formidable undertaking in India, whose titanic voter rolls had about 970 million names before Kumar got started. The SIR process has now removed about 130 million names, which is larger than the entire population of some other democracies.
Critics say the SIR has been over-zealous about purging members of the political opposition, while skipping over voters who support Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP party. Some voters who objected to the removal of their names claim their protests have been ignored.
The controversy grew after other members of the election commission filed numerous objections to the SIR procedure. The other commissioners put on a display of collegial support, and members of BJP and its allies insist the process of cleaning up the voter rolls is proceeding fairly. Kumar, previously seen as a quiet, capable bureaucrat, became a vocal public defender of the SIR and got into some verbal sparring matches with the political opposition, including its most prominent lawmaker, Rahul Gandhi.
Kumar became the prime target of opposition parties, including the CJP. Protests demanding his resignation or impeachment have grown over the past week. The Delhi police said on Friday they rejected CJP’s application for a permit to hold a large demonstration, in part because the party did not give the required 10-day advance notice. The police also said CJP has proven to be unruly in previous large protests.
Over 20,000 police and paramilitary forces were deployed to Delhi to head off the protests. Indian Railways canceled some of its trains to the capital city on Saturday due to “anticipated severe road traffic congestion.” CJP activists said the trains are being shut down to keep them out of Delhi. The police have publicly suggested closing dozens of train stations in the capital to maintain order.
CJP said on Thursday the police have begun detaining its members on flimsy pretexts, including party spokesperson Deepak Baliyan, who was arrested on Thursday but released later that night. Rahul Gandhi and his sister were also arrested while trying to reach the protests.
CJP said at least ten thousand people were arrested across the country on Thursday, many of them while in transit to New Delhi for the Saturday protest.
CJP accused Prime Minister Modi and his administration of “being at war with its own young citizens” and effectively imposing a “state of emergency,” meaning martial law.
The founder of the Cockroach Janata Party, Abhijeet Dipke, said on Friday he still intends to march in Delhi on Saturday.
“This intimidation is not going to work, Modi. The youth of this country are no longer scared of you,” he taunted the prime minister.
BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia fired back on Thursday, accusing CJP and other opposition parties of becoming “an irresponsible, anarchist opposition.” He said there was “no base, not an iota of evidence” for their allegations against Kumar.