Court keeps Cockroach Janta Party leaders in jail two more days, not the five police wanted

What the court said

The police case rests on an undertaking the two leaders gave on 11 October. Permission for a protest had been granted on their assurance that every condition would be followed. Police say the two then went online, repeatedly, to summon crowds to Jantar Mantar and Connaught Place, neither of which is a designated protest site.

The investigating officer's report, quoted in the order, said the two had "mobilized and enticed the general public to assemble and stage protest at Jantar Mantar". The court agreed that this counted against them. Their conduct, it said, "shows no respect for law and their habitualness in calling protest at de-notified areas". A promise not to repeat the offence did not inspire confidence, the magistrate added, pointing to "substantial material on record, raising serious concerns regarding the likelihood of breach of peace".

Ranka and Das were detained on 13 October, a day after Jantar Mantar was taken off the list of approved protest venues. They were among 14 people who climbed over the locked gates and barricades to get inside. On 14 October a court sent them to five days of judicial custody, which ran out on Monday.

The party disputes almost every line of the police account. Singh said the authorities had "failed to present a single piece of evidence showing any threat to public peace". She denied that the movement had called for protests demanding the pair's release after their custody began. The party says it submitted fresh sureties with identity proofs, and that only then did police file a new application to keep the two in custody. It described the proceedings as a farce designed to crush democratic voices and the continued detention as "a complete mockery of legal process and state-sponsored overreach".

The fight over the voter rolls

The custody hearing is one front in a wider confrontation. For most of this month the Cockroach Janta Party, opposition parties and left-wing student groups have held near-daily protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

Protesters say about 130 million names were struck off the lists in the revision and that the exercise favours the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The Election Commission rejects that reading. It says the deletions covered 28 million people who had died, 63 million who had moved and 30 million who could not be traced, that anyone wrongly removed can enrol again, and that it favours no party. The BJP has accused its rivals of undermining democracy by questioning a legitimate process. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the protesters were using young people for a politics of chaos.

The dispute has reached the Supreme Court. On Thursday last week a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notice to the Election Commission on a petition led by Rahul Gandhi, and sought responses from Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The petitioners want the revision suspended in some states while the case is heard.

On the streets, the pressure has been constant. On 10 October police locked down parts of the capital ahead of a march on the commission; estimates of how many people were detained that day, opposition politicians, journalists and lawyers among them, ranged from about 200 to more than 2,000. Last Friday the party's founder, Abhijeet Dipke, student leaders and several supporters were detained as hundreds marched into central Delhi in support of Ranka and Das. The United Nations human rights office has raised concerns about mass detentions around the protests.

The crackdown has reached beyond the party. Actor Imran Khan, a United States citizen who holds an Overseas Citizen of India card, was served notice to leave the country by 28 October after joining a protest against the commission in Mumbai on 10 October. He is challenging the notice in the Bombay High Court.

A movement that has toppled a minister before

The Cockroach Janta Party is barely five months old. Dipke, a political communications strategist, founded it on 16 May, and it is not registered with the Election Commission. Its name was chosen as a taunt: an insect that survives whatever is thrown at it.

In July the movement showed what that could mean in practice. A sit-in at Jantar Mantar over leaked examination papers grew for weeks, drew tear gas and baton charges when marchers tried to reach Parliament, and ended on 25 July with the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The party called off those protests the same day, saying its demands had been met.

That history explains both the size of the police response this month and the party's confidence that it can outlast it. The commission has given no sign that Gyanesh Kumar will step down, and the Supreme Court case will take time. The nearer date is Wednesday, when Ranka and Das return to court with new sureties, and when the magistrate decides whether two more days become longer.