India’s Cockroach Janta Party has dramatically stepped up its campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, giving him 48 hours to resign or face what it says will be a nationwide agitation. At a press conference in New Delhi, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke raised the slogan “Gyanesh Kumar Isteefa Do” and accused the election chief of undermining voters’ rights. The protest threat follows an Indian Express investigation reporting that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi raised objections at least fourteen times over ten months on issues linked to electoral rolls and the Special Intensive Revision process. The concerns reportedly involved voter additions and deletions, restoration of names, changes involving Form 6, access to electoral-roll systems and internal decision-making. The Election Commission has pushed back against suggestions of a split, saying differing views and written observations are a normal part of institutional deliberations and that final decisions, including those concerning SIR, were unanimous. But CJP is demanding Kumar’s resignation, an independent investigation and changes to the electoral-roll process. Dipke has warned that if the 48-hour deadline passes without a resignation, the organisation will take its campaign across India, with another major demonstration in Delhi also being threatened. The controversy comes as opposition parties separately intensify scrutiny of the Election Commission, putting India’s electoral-roll system and the independence of the poll body back at the centre of national political debate.
