Abhijeet Dipke — the organiser behind the movement associated with the "cockroach" tag — was detained on Friday along with student leaders and supporters, as several hundred people converged on central Delhi, waving national flags and demanding the resignation of the country's chief election official.

Frequent demonstrations — organised by the Cockroach Janta Party, a movement led by young people, alongside opposition groups and student bodies — have taken place across much of this month, with participants calling on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to step down over changes to voter rolls that those groups contend were drawn up in a way that benefits the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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 maintained its impartiality and noted that voters whose registrations were removed in error retain the option to re-register. The party lodged a formal complaint that opposition figures were attempting to cast doubt on voting procedures it regards as lawful and above reproach.

Dipke announced a gathering on Friday in solidarity with two CJP leaders who, having taken part in a demonstration at a restricted site, were taken into custody earlier in the week and held on five-day remand. Supporters were called upon by the organisation and affiliated student groups to assemble at Central Park — located within New Delhi's Connaught Place area, known for its shops and restaurants — on Friday evening, where participants planned to display and raise the national flag.

Officers took Dipke into custody at the entrance of a central Delhi property, placing him in a patrol vehicle and leaving the scene following a short exchange. Neha Bora, a student activist who had become a visible figure in the protests, was taken into custody along with dozens of supporters while on her way to Connaught Place.

Constable Sachin Sharma told a broadcaster that both Dipke and Bora had been taken into preventive custody. Separately, the organisation CJP posted on X that Abhijeet had been held by Delhi Police and that authorities appeared uneasy about young people carrying the national flag. Earlier that same Friday, officers had also visited Dipke to discourage him from going ahead with the planned demonstration.

Hundreds of officers in protective gear fanned out across central Delhi as authorities expanded their presence in the area. Municipal authorities ordered the gates of the park to be closed to visitors.

Close to 500 demonstrators converged on Connaught Place by moving in clusters, gathering at roughly six locations around the Central Park area to display flags and voice their slogans. A number of demonstrators were taken into custody and placed in a police vehicle; among them was Saurav Kumar, a data analyst, who told officers before his arrest that flying the national flag ought not to be treated as an offence, and that a government unwilling to accommodate peaceful assembly or acknowledge shortcomings in its own institutions was not behaving in a manner consistent with democratic norms.

Gatherings also took place in Mumbai and Bengaluru, and student groups assembled in Patna, where participants displayed organisational flags and pressed against barriers set up by police.

Among the political tests that have accumulated during Modi and the BJP's twelve years in power, this protest movement ranks as one of the more notable, according to observers. Pradhan's departure from the Education Ministry portfolio — tied to the leaking of examination papers — followed a period in which his supporters had gathered in extended demonstrations on his behalf.

The current protests were set off by an Indian Express report disclosing that two officials serving under Kumar had internally flagged concerns over alterations to voter rolls, enrolment procedures, and digital infrastructure. According to the Election Commission, voter registration records shed a net total of 130 million entries over the course of the past year — a figure that exceeds the full population of Japan — with the removals broken down as follows: roughly 28 million names belonged to people who had died, around 63 million reflected address changes, and the balance of approximately 30 million covered registrants whose current locations could not be confirmed.

Rival parties contend that the removed names belong disproportionately to Muslim voters and other minority communities whose electoral loyalties are seen as running against the governing party — a position both the Election Commission and the BJP have pushed back on.

Rajnath Singh, speaking to reporters on Friday in his capacity as defence minister, characterised the demonstrations as an attempt by the opposition Congress party to reach power through means outside the electoral process, and suggested that young participants were being steered toward partisan ends rather than toward goals that serve the broader public interest.