CJP leader threatens Delhi march over demand for election chief’s resignation

Thousands of people demonstrated outside Mumbai’s Shivaji Park on October 2, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in electoral rolls and the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision exercise. The protest was organised by the Cockroach Janta Party. Police permission had not been granted, but demonstrators gathered outside the park’s gates in Dadar with the national flag.

CJP conveners addressed the crowd and called for the SIR process to be frozen and the January 2025 voters’ list restored. The party also demanded criminal proceedings over the exercise, saying this should establish who ordered it. It called for repeal of the 2023 law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners and a new mechanism involving civil society.

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke announced that supporters from across India would march to Jantar Mantar in Delhi on October 10 if Mr. Kumar did not resign. He said the action would be peaceful and argued that any location where police stopped the protesters would become their protest site.

The supplied report does not include a response from Mr. Kumar or the Election Commission to the allegations and demands. It says around 4,000 to 5,000 people attended, according to a senior Dadar police official, while about 800 police personnel and riot-control units were deployed.

An argument later broke out between CJP supporters and some right-wing supporters as the crowd dispersed. Police arrived and defused the situation. The report also said a 75-year-old man who came to watch the protest suffered chest pain and later died of a heart attack at a hospital.

The protest included political figures, actor Shabana Azmi and singer Vishal Dadlani. Participants alleged that the electoral exercise affected marginalised groups, but the report presents those claims without an official response.