The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has issued a 48-hour deadline to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, demanding that he resign or face a nationwide protest campaign.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke announced the ultimatum during a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday. He alleged that the Election Commission’s handling of electoral rolls had raised serious questions about voters’ rights and the functioning of the country’s electoral system.
Dipke said the organisation would not withdraw its campaign if Kumar did not step down within the deadline. He also indicated that the proposed protest would follow the lines of the CJP’s earlier demonstration at Jantar Mantar.
“If within 48 hours Gyanesh Kumar doesn’t resign, the Cockroach Janta Party will start a nationwide agitation. We won’t step back till the time Gyanesh Kumar resigns,” Dipke said.
The CJP’s demand comes amid the wider political controversy surrounding the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The controversy intensified after an investigation by The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised formal objections on multiple occasions over the past 10 months. The reported concerns covered issues including voter additions, deletions and restoration, changes to Form 6 and access to electoral-roll databases.
The Election Commission has rejected suggestions that these objections indicate a split within the three-member panel. In its response, the poll body said differences during internal deliberations are part of its decision-making process and maintained that decisions, including those concerning SIR, were taken unanimously.
Dipke, however, has continued to question the Election Commission’s functioning. He alleged that large numbers of names had been removed from electoral rolls and claimed that the process could affect the ability of eligible citizens to exercise their voting rights.
He also raised questions over the role of the Commission’s digital systems in maintaining electoral rolls, alleging that greater centralisation could reduce the role of officials responsible for voter lists at the constituency level.
The CJP founder further criticised the Election Commission over its decisions involving election symbols and political parties. He referred to the dispute surrounding the Shiv Sena and the allocation of its election symbol as part of his broader criticism of the poll body.
Dipke said the CJP was not supporting any particular Opposition party through its campaign. Instead, he argued that the organisation was raising what it described as concerns about the electoral process.
The latest warning comes as Opposition parties have separately intensified their criticism of Gyanesh Kumar over the SIR controversy and the reported objections within the Election Commission.
The CJP has said that if its 48-hour deadline is not met, it will begin a nationwide agitation. The organisation has also previously referred to a possible “Jantar Mantar 2.0” protest.
For now, the resignation demand remains a political call by the CJP, while the Election Commission maintains that its decisions have been taken according to established procedures and that its decisions were unanimous.
