CJP’s Dipke warns of ‘Jantar Mantar 2.0’ at Mumbai protest, demands CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation
Here's the latest protest news from across India:
Targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged voter-roll irregularities, Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke on Friday demanded Kumar’s resignation and warned of a “Jantar Mantar 2.0” agitation, followed by a demand for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation if the CEC did not step down.
Adding to this, At Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke warned of ‘Jantar Mantar 2.0’ if CEC Gyanesh Kumar does not resign over voter-roll deletions. (PTI) Addressing a gathering at Shivaji Park in Mumbai, Dipke shared democracy is under threat as voter names have been removed from electoral rolls across India through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process initiated after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, “This represents roughly 13–14% of the total electorate, a figure large enough to sway election outcomes given that the vote-share gap between the NDA and opposition in 2024 was only about 2%. In Delhi, 40,000 votes were allegedly deleted from Arvind Kejriwal’s constituency, where Kejriwal lost by a narrow margin of 4,000–5,000 votes. In Tamil Nadu, 1 lakh votes were deleted, with DMK leader M.K. Stalin losing by just 10,000 votes. In West Bengal, 50,000 votes were deleted, and Mamata Banerjee’s party lost by 15,000 votes,” he shared.
Notably, However, HT’s analysis of SIR deletions by constituency has shown no correlation with the outcome, and some of the deletions have been caused by death and migration. But the exclusion of millions of voters from draft rolls — Delhi saw a 32.8% decline from the 14,510,299 names on the rolls in June 2026 — has resulted in public angst and anxiety.
As per the latest buzz, Revelations by The Indian Express last month that two election commissioners disagreed with some of the decisions, and that the central database of electors wasn’t accessible to on-ground officers tasked with adding and deleting names, have caused a stir. The Election Commission has since clarified that all decisions have been unanimous, based on the majority, and also modified the SIR process to reduce the inconvenience to voters.
In further updates, Star Shabana Azmi, music director Dadlani and Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson Tushar Gandhi joined the protest in Mumbai, which saw a huge crowd and support from the youth.
On top of that, Shiv Sena-UBT extended its support as the party’s local MLA Sawant joined the CJP team on the dais.
He accused the BJP dispensation of orchestrating a strategy to divide voters along religious lines, stating that Hindu-Muslim politics will not work anymore and urging the younger generation and Gen-Z to think beyond religion.
Source: Hindustan Times