Two consecutive protest movements have arisen to confront the BJP-led government during Narendra Modi's tenure spanning three terms as prime minister. Pradhan, who held the education portfolio in the Union cabinet, resigned his post amid the unrest — a departure that made him the first sitting minister to exit the Prime Minister's administration during that period — while the broader movement drew its energy from a student-led body operating under the name Cockroach Janta Party.

A development still playing out has drawn opposition parties — previously fragmented in their aims — toward a shared objective: the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar from his post. The CJP, whose leaders were released from police custody after undertaking to observe a year of good conduct, has nonetheless pledged to keep street demonstrations going, and that movement now sits at the centre of organised opposition to the CEC.

The Chief Justice of India's interventions on matters touching politics and elections have drawn uncertainty from both major national parties — the Congress and the BJP — about where those boundaries lie.

BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi, speaking on Sunday, drew a comparison between the Citizens for Justice and Peace's pace of political alignment and the speed of radioactive decay — suggesting the organisation had transformed faster than even atomic particles. His party characterised the group's participation in the October 10 protests at Delhi's Jantar Mantar against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar as carrying overt political motivations. Congress, under Rahul Gandhi, had offered verbal backing for those demonstrations without sending representatives to attend them.

Separately, the Congress party has been mapping out its response to the CJP's gradual rise in prominence, with Rahul Gandhi sustaining his outreach to students through the 'Chhatron ki goonj' series of events while maintaining pressure through protests directed at Gyanesh Kumar. An opposition march on the matter is being planned by the Congress party.

Within opposition ranks, figures at the most senior levels have come to view continuous street protest as a tactic unlikely to hold up over time, with negotiated political remedies increasingly seen as an unavoidable path. The BJP has positioned itself to occupy a vacuum that opened up in the political arena.

Senior BJP figures have indicated the party intends to raise questions about Congress's repeated recourse to street protests over a matter that remains under the Supreme Court's consideration. Reports suggest the strategy involves repeatedly characterising the Congress party, led by Rahul, as harbouring tendencies toward disorder and defiance of established norms.

The country's highest court, having received accounts of disagreement among Election Commissioners over approvals granted to the Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls, has called for the full documentary record from the poll body to determine whether decisions connected to the SIR process were, as the Election Commission itself has maintained, taken with the agreement of all its members.

The BJP questioned why Congress and the broader opposition were moving to cast doubt on the Chief Election Commissioner while the matter remained before the Supreme Court. A party insider also put it to the opposition to table a formal removal motion in Parliament if they held such firm views. The BJP has assessed that its parliamentary position is secure against any removal motion, given that the opposition — including the Congress party and its INDIA bloc allies — falls short of the numbers needed to carry such a vote.

No official confirmation has come from the party, though factions within it have left open the prospect of Parliament being called into a special sitting to take up the prevailing debates of the moment. Both the BJP and the Congress have announced parallel nationwide outreach drives, each framing the other in adversarial terms — the BJP portraying the opposition as a threat to constitutional institutions, while the Congress characterises the ruling party as authoritarian and accuses it of operating in concert with the Election Commission.

Three of the movement's top figures have been released from custody, each bound by a one-year peace condition, leaving the CJP navigating an uncertain period in its internal affairs. Abhijeet Dipke, founder of CJP, has disputed the existence of any undertaking bearing his signature that would bar him from street protests, even as a number of BJP leaders have circulated on social media what they describe as a signed document attributed to him.

CJP leaders indicated through public statements made on Sunday, shortly after their release from detention, that a return to street protests remained their intended course of action, regardless of the nature of the undertaking at issue. Protesters have pledged to maintain their demonstrations until the CEC is removed from the position.

While the CJP undertook its internal reorganisation, the ruling party directed its attention toward a set of elections due the following year. One party leader contended that a student-driven agitation over the NEET UG paper leak — which had taken shape roughly two months prior — had since expanded into a broader movement tied to electoral grievances, and that the direction the organisation was heading had, in that leader's assessment, grown progressively clearer.