Cockroach Janta Party announces new anti-SIR protest in Kochi on Nov 7, demands removal of CEC Gyanesh Kumar

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) will hold a “Jantar Mantar @Kochi” protest at Rajendra Maidan on Saturday, taking its demand for the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the cancellation of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to Kerala.

The party announced the event in a post on X on Thursday. The protest is set for 4 PM on November 7. “Save Democracy! Cancel SIR!” the post read, inviting supporters to join. The posters carry the line “Remove Gyanesh Kumar | Cancel SIR” and the hashtag #JantarMantarKochi.

Also read: Jantar Mantar protests: HPEC received hardly any complaints, SC told


The posters name CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, national secretary Aafreen Nawaz and Vijay Mallangi, the party’s media and south zone lead, as the national protest leaders taking part. Kochi is the latest stop in the party’s push outside Delhi against the Election Commission.

On 12 October, Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar from the list of designated protest sites. Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and the CBD Ground in east Delhi were named as alternatives. A day later, CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka climbed barricades to enter the site and were detained. “You cannot denotify the resistance,” Dipke said in a post on X.

Groups in Kochi had already begun a “Let’s Create Jantar Mantar Across the Country” campaign in response. It was to continue from 16 October at Vanchi Square near the High Court junction, with the CJP and the SFI among those taking part.

The Election Commission announced the second phase of SIR in October last year, covering 12 states and Union Territories, including Kerala. When the final roll for Kerala was published on February 21, around nine lakh names had been removed, leaving over 2.69 crore voters.

Opposition parties cited reported differences within the three-member Commission, and the Congress demanded his removal on 23 September. The Commission said all its decisions, including those on SIR, were unanimous. A public interest litigation was also filed in the Supreme Court seeking action against Kumar and a probe into the deletion of about 13 crore voters.

The CJP then gave Kumar a 48-hour ultimatum. It sought his resignation, a halt to SIR, restoration of the January 2025 voter rolls and repeal of the 2023 law on the appointment of election commissioners. Street protests followed in Delhi from early October, with hundreds detained at Jantar Mantar on October 2.