India's ‘cockroaches’ threaten renewed protests unless CEC quits over ‘vote theft’

The leaders of India's "cockroach" youth movement said on Thursday that they would launch nationwide protests if the chief election commissioner (CEC) does not resign within 48 hours over alleged voting irregularities, and reliability concerns among his own deputies.

Opposition parties have said that among the many questionable initiatives of the current commission, the revised voter lists have in multiple states excluded Muslims -- as part of a design to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Reuters reported.

The Opposition, led by Congress, is preparing to move a fresh impeachment motion against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, sources have told NDTV.

The controversy began on Wednesday when the Indian Express newspaper said two election commissioners had raised questions or expressed concern at least 14 times in 10 months – mostly in connection with the process of updating voter lists that began last year – with Gyanesh Kumar.

Election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi – who the newspaper said had questioned and differed with Kumar – did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

The Indian Express report has sparked a political furore, with opposition parties launching a fresh attack on the election commission that they have accused of being biased. The panel has denied these claims.

On Thursday, Congress announced protest marches on all state election offices across India on Friday, demanding Kumar's arrest, his removal from office and an independent review of all decisions and voter-list changes made under him.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has said that differences between election commissioners were normal for any institution across the world. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

The ECI has, however, rejected any suggestion that its own decisions were divided or that the two Election Commissioners had formally dissented from decisions of the full Commission.

The poll body has said that all its decisions over the past year, including those concerning the electoral roll revisions, were unanimous.

"If Gyanesh Kumar does not resign within 48 hours, the Cockroach Janta Party will start a nationwide agitation ... we will not back down without Gyanesh Kumar's resignation," said Abhijeet Dipke, who founded the self-named movement, at a press conference.

'Cockroaches' ride on unprecedented success achieved in July

The Cockroach Janta Party is fresh off its successful youth demonstrations in July, which led to the resignation of Modi's education minister over exam-paper leaks – one of Modi's biggest political setbacks since he came to power in 2014.

Gyanesh Kumar is one of three election commissioners and is the chief as he is the most senior.

Opposition parties have criticised the conduct of the panel in recent years, alleging that names of millions of voters were deleted without warning and that new voters were added without verification to favour the BJP.

The BJP has defended the poll panel and said opposition parties had launched a smear campaign because they were regularly losing elections.

"Neither the Election Commission of India nor any constitutional body in India is under dictatorial rule ... they are functioning democratically," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said at a media briefing on Wednesday.