Hundreds of protesters have been detained in Delhi during the latest demonstration by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) calling for electoral reforms.
The group said its founder Abhijeet Dipke – who launched the movement in May after India’s Chief Justice likened some jobless young people to “cockroaches” – was detained with other leaders shortly after landing in Delhi.
Tens of thousands of security personnel were deployed and roads barricaded ahead of the demonstration.
The group – who are not registered as a political party in India – are seeking electoral reforms just months before key state elections. It has also demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of manipulating voters’ lists, which the Election Commission has denied.
Under Kumar’s leadership, India’s election commission has carried a vast exercise to update electoral rolls nationwide. It says this was a routine exercise to remove the names of dead, duplicate or ineligible voters. But in many states the exercise has been shrouded in controversy, with tens of thousands of people alleging they have been wrongly removed.
The CJP and opposition parties accuse Kumar of manipulating the process in order to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Election Commission and the BJP have denied this.
Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Azadeh Moshiri in Delhi.
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