Members of the Cockroach Janata Party have been detained by authorities, the organisation has stated, while supporters drawn from its own ranks and from affiliated student groups assembled publicly to demand the resignation of the election commissioner. Rallies held on Thursday precede a broader mobilisation organised by the CJP, with a march drawing participants expected to number in the thousands set for Saturday at Jantar Mantar, the designated assembly ground in New Delhi.

A post on X published Thursday by Ashutosh Ranka, who serves as a spokesperson for the movement, put the number of people detained nationwide — drawn from CJP demonstrations, student organisations, affiliated grassroots groups, and political parties — at a minimum of 10,000. Deepak Baliyan, identified as the national spokesman for CJP, was placed in police custody on Thursday, the organisation confirmed through its published statements. Video posted to X showed protesters being placed into vans and taken from the scene.

Calls for the removal of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar have come from opposition parties and student groups tied to the CJP movement, centred on a disputed update to voter registration rolls. Critics have alleged that the electoral body under his leadership operates in ways that favour Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

A statement from the CJP on Thursday indicated that those taken into custody included students travelling from Pune who had been making their way to New Delhi to take part in scheduled demonstrations at Jantar Mantar. The organisation reported that activists were transported by bus to a location that was not disclosed, while Abhijeet Dipke, founder of CJP, responded to a video of the detentions by questioning in a post whether a formal emergency declaration would have been more appropriate.

Voter rolls maintained by the Election Commission of India have shed upwards of 130 million entries to date, with a substantial number of those affected lodging formal challenges against the deletions. Roughly 969 million people held voting rights heading into the 2024 election.

Protesters who joined the demonstrations have argued that voter-roll changes landed disproportionately on communities whose political leanings tilt toward parties outside the ruling coalition, while districts where the BJP draws its strongest backing saw their registries left untouched or expanded. Both the commission and the government have put forward rejections of the allegations made against them. Officials maintain the review targets duplicate and ineligible entries rather than serving any partisan purpose, with the registration status of qualified voters left intact.

Members of the CJP youth movement marched through Bengaluru on Thursday morning, taking their demonstration into the streets of the city. Placards bearing phrases about electoral accountability and the integrity of democratic processes were visible throughout the crowd of demonstrators.

Khushi Shrivastava, a 22-year-old architecture student who attended the demonstration, told a broadcaster that voting rights sit at the heart of democratic participation, and that people with a genuine desire to cast ballots and a stake in the country's future were being turned away. In a separate development on Wednesday, Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi was detained for the third time in two days, with his party contending that police had used disproportionate force. Officers characterised the accusations as an attempt to damage their reputation.

Gaurav Bhatia, speaking on behalf of the BJP, dismissed the allegations by labelling the opposition as both irresponsible and anarchist in its conduct.