During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ongoing third term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has faced two separate rounds of street-level protest — a pattern that had not taken shape across any earlier stretch of his leadership. Dharmendra Pradhan's tenure as the Union cabinet's education minister came to an end after a protest movement linked to the youth-focused Cockroach Janta Party gathered momentum — a departure that placed him as the first sitting cabinet minister to leave office under that administration.
A development still playing out has drawn opposition parties — previously scattered in their aims — toward a shared objective: the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar from his post. The CJP, whose members were released from police custody after pledging to observe good conduct for a year, has announced it will press ahead with street demonstrations against the CEC.
The Chief Justice's interventions on political and electoral matters have left both the Congress party and the BJP uncertain about how to respond. BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, a Rajya Sabha member, drew on the metaphor of radioactive decay on Sunday to argue that the Citizens for Justice and Peace had transformed its political alignment at a pace he described as without parallel, as his party characterised the outfit's involvement in the October 10 demonstrations at Jantar Mantar against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar as carrying political motivations — a gathering from which the Congress, despite expressing verbal solidarity under Rahul Gandhi's leadership, kept a physical distance.
Separately, the Congress party has been mapping out its approach to the CJP's gradual rise in prominence, with Rahul Gandhi maintaining his focus on youth-related concerns through the ongoing 'Chhatron ki goonj' initiative and keeping up pressure through demonstrations directed at Gyanesh Kumar. An opposition march on the matter is being organised once more by the Congress party.
Within opposition ranks, figures at the most senior levels have come to view prolonged street protests as a tactic with limited staying power, with debate over political pathways now seen as unavoidable. That opening has served as a zone of political opportunity where the BJP has been able to establish a degree of operational footing.
Senior BJP figures have indicated the party intends to raise questions about Congress's repeated public demonstrations over a matter that remains under consideration by the Supreme Court. Unverified accounts point to a deliberate pattern of attaching the label "anarchist" to the Congress party, which Rahul leads, as a recurring political tactic.
The nation's apex court, having received accounts of internal disagreement among Election Commissioners over approvals connected to the Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls, directed the poll body to place all relevant files before it, so that the bench could form its own view on whether those SIR decisions were reached by consensus across the full commission, as the commission itself has maintained.
The BJP has questioned why opposition parties aligned with Congress moved to publicly discredit the Chief Election Commissioner while the matter remained under consideration by the Supreme Court, with one party insider posing the question of whether the parliamentary removal process was an avenue the opposition was prepared to pursue. The BJP has assessed that its parliamentary numbers place it in a stronger position than the opposition — which, by most counts, falls short of the threshold needed to pass a removal motion — and its INDIA bloc allies.
No official confirmation has been issued, yet factions within the party have kept open the possibility that Parliament could be convened for a special sitting to take up the prevailing debates of the moment. Both parties announced rival nationwide outreach drives, with the BJP deploying leaders to counter what it described as Congress-led efforts to weaken constitutional institutions, while Congress organised its own parallel push to challenge what it characterised as authoritarian governance by the BJP with the Election Commission's backing.
Three of the movement's top leaders have been released from custody under an agreement requiring them to keep the peace for the coming year, leaving the CJP navigating a period of uncertainty. Abhijeet Dipke, founder of CJP, has contested the existence of any undertaking barring him from street protests, even as BJP leaders have been circulating what they describe as a signed document bearing his name on social media.
CJP leaders indicated through public statements made on Sunday, shortly after their release from detention, that a return to street demonstrations remained part of their plans, regardless of the nature of the undertaking at issue. Protesters have pledged to maintain their demonstrations until the CEC is removed from the position.
As the CJP works to reorganise, a BJP leader has attributed the group's trajectory to a shift in focus — noting that what began roughly two months ago as student-led protests over the NEET UG examination paper irregularities has since broadened into a wider agitation centred on electoral concerns, with the party viewing the CJP's eventual registration as a political party as a likely outcome, even as it prepares for a series of state polls expected next year.
