Zayaan Aftab — October 20, 2026
Prime Minister Narendra Modi defends India as a “mother of democracy.” Amidst his defense, protests against a Chief Election Commissioner over an alleged case of voter fraud are rising, with thousands of supporters of the “Cockroach Janta Party” against the Election Commission striking off millions of people from voter lists in favor of the Commissioner resigning.
The root of this conflict is a drastic change in voting eligibility last year. “Special intensive revisions” have updated voter lists across the country, leading to the names of 130 million people being struck off, as per several local media reports. Many have called this an attack on democracy, arguing that the Election Commission shouldn’t be removing such high numbers of people, as it could potentially harm political participation and skew elections. Recently, the Election Commission of India has been making efforts to enroll excluded voters in order to ameliorate this. Moreover, Modi’s ruling party has defended these deletions, stating that they are a combination of deaths, relocations, duplicate entries, and absent and non-traceable voters.
The response to this has been an uprising in many areas across India. Thousands of people joined leaders of opposition parties to file a petition against the voting revisions via the Supreme Court, while others have been marching in various major cities to show their support.
In response, members of the CJP have been detained for protesting without permission. For example, CJP leaders had originally sought permission from Delhi Police to protest in Jantar Mantar grounds, but the government barred the use of the site soon after. Additionally, protests, specifically in Delhi, have been cracked down upon significantly, especially in comparison to previous protests, according to a South Asia Advisor at Teneo. Some experts state that these crackdowns could broaden social unrest, and backfire to cause more protests.
The United Nation Human Rights Office has also raised concerns over how Indian authorities are handling the protests, stating that authorities should respect the right to peaceful assembly. India’s Ministry of External Affairs responded by calling the UNHR’s comments “unwarranted,” and claiming they were an “unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of India.”
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