India detains youth activists as protests over voter lists spread

Indian authorities have begun mass detentions of activists from the “Cockroach” youth movement, the group said on Thursday, days before a major protest in New Delhi to demand the resignation of the country’s top election official.

Opposition parties, their student wings and the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) have held almost daily protests calling on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to quit over a controversial revision of voter lists. They accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using the revision to fix the rolls in its favour, with the help of appointees including Kumar. The Election Commission and the BJP deny the allegations, and Kumar has not commented.

Activists taken away

Many activists, including senior CJP member and spokesperson Deepak Baliyan, were among those arrested, the movement said on X. It said students from Pune heading for the October 10 protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi were taken away in a bus to an unknown location. Videos showed activists being driven off in vans, Dawn reported, citing Reuters, which could not verify them. Police did not respond to requests for comment.

“Why not just declare emergency?” CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke wrote.

Protests across states

Hundreds of CJP supporters protested in Bengaluru on Thursday, holding posters reading “Every name counts, Every vote matters” and “Stop the Murder of Democracy”. Congress supporters marched in Telangana, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal held a protest in Bihar.

“I think voting right is the most basic point of democracy,” Khushi Shrivastava, a 22-year-old architecture student at the Bengaluru protest, told Reuters.

On Wednesday, Congress accused police of using “brute force” to briefly detain party leader Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Vadra and other lawmakers as they tried to reach Jantar Mantar. Delhi Police said the claims were being used to “defame” the force. BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia called the opposition “irresponsible” and “anarchist” and said its claims had “not an iota of evidence”.

Living Muslim voters marked dead

In Karnataka, the revision has been accused of targeting Muslim voters, The Express Tribune reported. In Vijayapura, expelled BJP lawmaker Basanagouda Patil Yatnal submitted a list on August 31 seeking the deletion of 1,054 voters. At least eight of them were found to be alive and living at their listed addresses, yet were marked dead; six were Muslim women.

According to activists:

• the deletion requests were backed by death certificates that matched the voters’ names but had different parents, spouses or addresses
• more than 4,000 bulk deletion forms have been filed across Karnataka, many targeting Muslim voters
• in Babaleshwar, 1,373 such forms were submitted on September 22, of which 1,363 were allegedly filed by just 10 people

The district electoral officer has ordered an inquiry after finding that some death certificates appeared to belong to other people with the same names. Yatnal has defended the revision and publicly alleged that “Muslims are the bogus voters”.

Why it matters

The protests pose a new challenge to Modi midway through his third term, months after CJP-led demonstrations forced the resignation of his education minister over exam paper leaks. The allegations that eligible Muslim citizens are being struck off the rolls have deepened concern over the treatment of India’s largest minority.

This article draws on reporting by Dawn and The Express Tribune.