Hours after a crowd of more than 10,000 filled the approaches to Shivaji Park, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke put a date on the next step. In a post on X late on Friday, he said supporters from across the country would march to Delhi and protest at Jantar Mantar on October 10 if Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar did not resign.
“If Gyanesh Kumar doesn’t resign, cockroaches from across India will march to Delhi & protest at Jantar Mantar on October 10,” Dipke wrote. “If Delhi Police tries to stop us, wherever they stop us will become our Jantar Mantar.” He called the planned action a peaceful andolan, said the group would “walk on the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi,” and left the choice with the government and Delhi Police: respect the right to protest, or “repeat the brutality we witnessed on July 20.” The fight, he wrote, was “to save our democracy,” and “every citizen who wants free & fair elections must join.”
The post followed a Gandhi Jayanti rally that Mumbai Police had refused to clear for the park, citing a 2013 Bombay High Court order that largely reserves Shivaji Park for sport. The gathering went ahead anyway, heavy with young protesters, posters and banners, and stayed largely orderly. From the stage, Dipke had already dared the Commission and the government. “If Gyanu doesn’t resign, Nandu will have to resign, because he is the one actually rigging elections,” he told the crowd. “If Gyanu doesn’t go, all the Gen Z of the country will go to Delhi to protest.”
That line turned a Mumbai dare into a calendar entry. CJP’s demands remain Kumar’s resignation and criminal proceedings against him, a freeze on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls with the January 2025 list restored, and the scrapping of the 2023 law on appointing election commissioners. Co-convenor Ashutosh Ranka and other speakers backed the charge of mass deletions. Actors Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah and singer Vishal Dadlani were among those reported at the venue.
Dipke also cast the Mumbai meeting as a trailer. The government, he said, was incompetent enough that the group had to agitate again within two months of its earlier Jantar Mantar sit-in. The October 10 call is conditional on Kumar staying in office. If he does, CJP is promising the capital the crowd it brought to Dadar and warning that a police stop will not cancel the protest, only move it
