Leaders of India's "Cockroach" Party Arrested After Entering Protest Site

Protesters climbed barricades in central Delhi to demand the resignation of the Election Commissioner over revisions to voter rolls.

Leaders of the Susk Janta Hind Party (CJP) were arrested early Tuesday morning after entering a heavily guarded protest site and chanting slogans calling for the resignation of the country's Chief Electoral Officer over a controversial electoral roll revision.

Party founder Abhijit Deepke shared a video showing Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das being taken away by police from Jantar Mantar in Delhi, a historic observatory popular with protesters.

The footage shows the two - along with others - climbing over police barricades while holding Indian flags and chanting slogans.

Opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi claim that the voter roll revision is in favor of his party, a charge that the Election Commission denies.

Protests have been held for several days demanding the resignation of Election Commission Chairman Gyanesh Kumar.

Police have stepped up security across Delhi as protesters challenge restrictions on the venue.

Earlier on Tuesday, Deepke, Das and Ranka all shared videos showing Das and Ranka entering the Jantar Mantar.

"You can't define resistance," Deepke wrote in X.

Das also posted a message announcing that the site had been "taken back" and that they were being detained.

It is not yet clear where the police took these leaders.

Ranka later appeared in an Instagram Live broadcast from the police bus alongside other detainees, where he appeared jubilant and said they were not coming back. Below

The arrests came a day after the federal home ministry announced that Jantar Mantar, long associated with public protests in Delhi, would no longer be a designated venue for protests. Officials instead identified three alternative locations where demonstrations could take place with a permit.

Ahead of the decision, the CJP had met Delhi Police officials to seek permission for a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar and had warned that he would call for more protests if they did not respond.

Ranka had earlier posted on X, “30 minutes after we went to Delhi Police and asked for a date to go to Jantar Mantar, Jantar Mantar was canceled as a protest venue.

Most of the leadership of this party has been in Delhi in recent days. But Deepke had traveled to her hometown in Maharashtra after her grandmother's death. He was among several CJP leaders detained ahead of the planned protest on Saturday and released the next day.

The CJP had called for a demonstration at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, but authorities imposed extensive security restrictions across the capital to prevent protesters from reaching the venue.

Several metro stations were closed, train services were disrupted and thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed.

Over the weekend, police arrested and released thousands of people, including several journalists. Some videos and photos of this demonstration show that the police force and push people, including women, into the bus.

Separately, opposition parties in Delhi on Monday staged a march from Connaught Place - a major shopping area in the heart of the capital - towards the Supreme Court.

The Congress, India's main opposition party, also filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Monday challenging the Election Commission's implementation of voter reviews, which resulted in the removal of tens of millions of names from electoral rolls.

Critics say the practice risks excluding those who qualify and makes it more difficult for them to prove eligibility.

Anger over the revision exercise flared up after The Indian Express reported that Kumar had ignored concerns raised by two other election commissioners about changes in voter registration. The Election Commission has said that its decisions were unanimous.

The current round of protests follows student protests earlier this year over examination irregularities. The CJP played a role in those protests, which culminated in the resignation of federal education minister Dharmendra Pradhan in July.