Indian police boarded a plane on Saturday to detain Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the surging youth-led Cockroach Janta Party, as he landed in New Delhi for a planned protest, the movement said. Other CJP leaders were detained as well, including influencer Dhruv Rathee, and the party said police in several states had detained thousands of supporters on Friday. By midday Saturday crowds in Delhi had not reached the scale of previous protests: the capital was sealed with thousands of police and paramilitaries, mobile internet was blocked in central Delhi until 10pm local time, more than 50 metro stations were shut and some long-distance trains canceled.
This round, dubbed “Season 2,” targets 62-year-old Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and his purge of voter rolls, which opposition parties say strips eligible voters to benefit Modi’s BJP, claims the BJP and the commission deny. The CJP began in May as a Gen-Z internet joke and in July forced the government’s biggest climbdown in years: education minister Dharmendra Pradhan stepped down after weeks of sit-ins and marches over an exam-paper leaks scandal. BJP president Nitin Nabin accused the movement Saturday of trying to destabilize India “at the behest of foreign forces.”