Authorities took Abhijeet Dipke — founder of the group known by the "cockroach" label — into custody alongside student leaders and other supporters on Friday, as a crowd of several hundred gathered in central Delhi carrying national flags and calling for the country's election commission chief to step down.

Demonstrations organised by the youth-founded Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), alongside various opposition groups and student organisations, have recurred on most days this month, with participants arguing that a recent revision of voter rolls was designed to favour Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — an allegation that has kept pressure on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to vacate his post.

Over the course of the electoral roll revision, upwards of 130 million registered voters were removed from the records. Responding to allegations of partisan favouritism, the Election Commission stated that no party had received preferential treatment and that voters removed from rolls in error retain the right to register again. The BJP lodged a formal complaint that opposition groups were attempting to cast doubt on voting procedures it regards as valid.

Dipke had called for a Friday rally in support of two CJP figures who had spent five days in detention following their participation in a demonstration held at a location where such gatherings were not permitted. The organisation, together with affiliated student bodies, put out a call for people to gather at Central Park — a green space within New Delhi's Connaught Place commercial and dining district — on Friday evening to hoist and display the national flag.

Officers took Dipke into custody outside a residence in central Delhi, placing him in a patrol vehicle and departing following a short exchange. Neha Bora, a student activist who had taken part in the demonstrations, was among those taken into custody when she attempted to make her way to Connaught Place alongside dozens of her supporters.

A police officer identified as Sachin Sharma told a news channel that both Dipke and Bora had been placed under preventive custody. The organisation CJP posted on X that Dipke had been detained by Delhi Police, along with a statement characterising the government as fearful of young people carrying the national flag — a characterisation reflecting the organisation's own position. Earlier that Friday, officers had visited Dipke and advised him against proceeding with the planned protest.

Hundreds of officers in protective gear deployed across central Delhi as the overall security presence grew. Local authorities ordered the gates of the green space closed to the public. Close to 500 demonstrators converged on Connaught Place in small groups, gathering at roughly six locations around the Central Park area to wave flags and chant.

Several protesters were taken into custody and placed in a police vehicle, among them Saurav Kumar, a data analyst, who told officers before his detention that carrying the national flag ought not to be treated as an offence and that he was prepared to face imprisonment. Kumar also expressed the view that a government unwilling to accommodate public demonstrations or acknowledge shortcomings in its own systems posed a concern for democratic functioning.

Separately, gatherings took place in Mumbai and Bengaluru, and student groups assembled in Patna, where participants raised their organisations' flags and pressed against barriers set up by police.

Among the political challenges that have confronted Modi and the BJP while in office, the protest movement drew considerable attention. Weeks of demonstrations by those who backed the minister had unfolded earlier that year, well before Dharmendra Pradhan's departure from the Education Ministry over the question paper leak. A published account in the Indian Express — detailing how two of Kumar's deputies had internally flagged concerns over voter list changes, registration procedures, and digital systems — preceded the latest round of protests.

Over the past twelve months, approximately 130 million names were removed from voter rolls — a volume exceeding the total population of Japan — with the Election Commission pointing to three separate causes: deaths confirmed for around 28 million registrants, address changes recorded for some 63 million others, and an inability to verify the location of roughly 30 million more.

Rival parties contend that the removed names fall disproportionately among Muslim and other minority communities — groups seen as unlikely to back the governing BJP — a characterisation both the party and the electoral commission dispute.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh described the protests as an attempt by the Congress party to gain power through political means, and suggested that young people were being drawn into that effort rather than channelled toward goals that serve the nation.