NEW DELHI, INDIA – OCTOBER 12: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi with INDIA alliance leaders during the march from Connaught Place to Supreme Court against alleged SIR irregularities on October 12, 2026 in New Delhi, India.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday defended India as a “mother of democracy” as protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of election fraud intensified.
“A wide range of issues are being debated openly and various perspectives are being discussed by the people,” Modi said, speaking at a Bloomberg New Economy event. His comments coincide with a harsh crackdown by authorities against protesters demanding electoral reforms.
Earlier today, key members of the viral pseudo-political movement, Cockroach Janta Party, were arrested for protesting without permission.
The CJP, whose leaders were also arrested by authorities over the weekend, had on Monday requested permission from the Delhi Police to launch fresh protests at the Jantar Mantar grounds in the capital. However, the government later banned the use of the site for protests.
On Monday, thousands of people reportedly joined leaders of India’s opposition parties in their march to the Delhi High Court to file a petition against the Election Commission’s revisions to the electoral roll.
The names of 130 million people were removed from the electoral roll after the commission began conducting “special intensive reviews” (SIR) to update voter lists across the country last year, according to several local media outlets.
Rahul Gandhi, India’s opposition leader, said the huge crowds were a sign that people were not going to be “intimidated” by the government.
“There are no side protests. It is a protest, and it is a protest where everyone is united,” Gandhi said, dismissing concerns about the absence of members of the Cockroach Janta Party who had called for protests this weekend.
“Delhi is once again flooded with people standing up to save democracy,” Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the viral pseudo-political movement CJP, said in a message in response to the crowds gathered for the Gandhi-led march.
Repression
Over the weekend, Indian security forces reportedly cracked down on protests in the capital, arresting youths, several opposition party politicians, YouTubers, lawyers and some journalists.
Delhi Police, which is under India’s Home Ministry, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Police officers arrest a Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) supporter during a protest demanding the resignation of India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, over alleged electoral roll irregularities linked to the “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR), in New Delhi on October 10, 2026. (Photo by Arun SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)
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Experts told CNBC that while the scale of the protests does not currently pose a threat to India’s stability, the crackdown could widen the unrest.
“If security forces continue to take heavy-handed approaches, it will create a more volatile environment that could make protesters angrier and galvanize even larger groups of protesters,” Michael Kugelman of the Atlantic Council told CNBC.
He added that at present the scale of the protests was not large enough to impact “capital flows and investor behavior”, but warned that “heavy-handed tactics generating violence and volatility” by the state could change the situation.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Saturday raised concerns about mass detentions and called on Indian authorities “to ensure that the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and realized.”
On Sunday, India’s foreign ministry responded to the UNHRC’s comments, calling them “unwarranted” and saying they constituted “unacceptable interference in India’s internal affairs.”
“Important and massive”
The crackdown during the latest protest was “significant and massive” compared to earlier reactions to farmers’ protests or uniform protests against the civil code, Arpit Chaturvedi, South Asia advisor at Teneo, told CNBC. He added that there is a good chance that widespread retaliation against police repression will lead to more protests.
The CJP had first called for a nationwide protest on October 2, demanding the removal of the election chief after an Indian Express investigative report revealed discrepancies in the functioning of the Election Commission and reports of suppression of millions of voters.
Demonstrators gather alongside members of opposition parties during a protest march on October 12, 2026 in New Delhi, India.
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On September 26, following reports of voter suppression, the Election Commission of India launched a special campaign across the country to register excluded voters. He downplayed the discrepancies highlighted in the Indian Express report and maintains that he is “determined to ensure that no eligible voter is excluded from the electoral roll”.
However, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party defended the Election Commission and said the deletions were made because of 28 million deaths, 68 million displaced people, 10 million duplicate entries and 30 million absent or untraceable voters.
The sweeping revisions to voter rolls have raised serious constitutional and legal questions, Milan Vaishnav, director and senior fellow of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNBC.
The movement’s main demand is that Kumar resign and the commission “seriously amend the so-called ‘special intensive revision’ of the electoral rolls”, he said.
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