Cockroach Party Leader Dipke Detained Ahead of Delhi Protest
New Delhi, Oct. 16, 2026: Delhi Police preventively detained Abhijeet Dipke, the 31-year-old founder of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), on Friday evening as he headed to Central Park in Connaught Place for a planned "Lehra Do Tiranga" (wave the tricolour) protest. Officers intercepted Dipke after he stepped out of a residence in central Delhi, telling him that prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita were in force and that he was being placed under preventive detention.
Why the protest was called
Friday's demonstration was organised to protest the jailing of two CJP leaders — Ashutosh Ranka, 30, and Saurav Das, 27 — who were sent to five days' judicial custody after entering Jantar Mantar waving the national flag on October 13, a day after Delhi Police denotified the historic site as a protest venue. Underlying the demonstrations is a demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, an exercise critics say removed more than 130 million names from voter lists, a figure reported by Indian media and cited by opposition parties in court filings.
Student activist Neha Bora, national president of the All India Students' Association, was detained at Mandi House and released early Saturday under Section 65 of the Delhi Police Act, while Dipke was to be produced before a Special Executive Magistrate court under Sections 126 and 170 of the BNSS, according to The Hindu. More than 6,000 police personnel and 220 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces were deployed across New Delhi, and Central Park was closed to the public.
What both sides say
Dipke, hours before his detention, said he expected police action: "If one has to go to jail for waving the Tricolour in this country, then we are ready for it." He maintained the campaign sought accountability, not the removal of the elected government, adding: "We believe in peace and non-violence. We are only asking for accountability."
Police said the New Delhi Municipal Council had not granted permission for the march and that waving the flag itself was not illegal — but gathering a crowd under prohibitory orders could invite legal action. The Election Commission has denied wrongdoing, saying the revision removed duplicate, deceased and fraudulent entries and that wrongly deleted voters can re-enrol. The BJP has accused its rivals of trying to undermine democracy by wrongly questioning legitimate electoral processes. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the demonstrations were the opposition Congress party's attempt to "seize power."
A wider political fallout
The detention drew swift political condemnation from opposition figures including Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and Tamil Nadu's M.K. Stalin, according to The Hindu. Gandhi said waving the tricolour in a peaceful protest was not a crime. Six U.S. lawmakers separately urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to raise the alleged excessive use of force during the student protests with Indian officials ahead of his visit to the country.
Despite the security clampdown, nearly 500 protesters reached Connaught Place in small groups on Friday evening, waving flags and shouting slogans around Central Park, with smaller demonstrations reported in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Patna. Farmer organisations under the Samyukt Kisan Morcha banner have announced a march to Delhi on October 23 demanding the election chief's resignation. The CJP, founded in May amid anger over exam paper leaks and youth unemployment, has held near-daily demonstrations this month. This was Dipke's second detention in a week — on October 10 he was detained aboard a flight at Delhi's airport after arriving from Mumbai.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Hitman (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
With the CJP's leader in custody and a farmers' march planned for October 23, the standoff over the voter roll revision shows no sign of easing — and India's Election Commission remains at the centre of one of the year's most intense political confrontations.