New Delhi braced for a second day of youth protests demanding the resignation of India’s election chief on Sunday, as a court ordered the release of “cockroach” movement founder Abhijeet Dipke and two other senior leaders.

Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, and the other leaders were detained when their plane landed in Delhi on Saturday as the movement planned to gather thousands of people at Jantar Mantar in Central Delhi.

 They were produced in front of a magistrate early on Sunday.

“Condition - no breach of peace for one year,” the CJP’s legal head Ratna Singh said in a post on X announcing their release.

Activist and social media influencer Dhruv Rathee, who was also among those detained, was released past midnight on condition he did not participate in any further protests, said an interior ministry official who declined to be named.

Police detained more than 2,000 people and locked down Delhi’s city centre to thwart Saturday’s protest, and thousands of police and paramilitary personnel continued to be deployed across the city on Sunday although metro stations reopened and mobile internet services were back up.

Most of those detained on the first day of protests were released late on Saturday night, police said.

Opposition parties and critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government criticised what they said was the high-handed use of force against the protesters, while a UN body called on authorities to ensure that the right to peaceful assembly was respected and fulfilled.

India’s foreign ministry said on Sunday the UN’s approach was “selective” and its statement constituted “an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of India.”

Millions of names removed from electoral roll

The protests are calling for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a revision of voter lists that critics say disproportionately benefits Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power for more than 12 years.

Sporadic protests have been going on across India since the Indian Express newspaper in late September reported Kumar’s two deputies raised several concerns internally about voter list revisions, registration procedures and digital systems.

The Commission says differing views are normal in internal deliberations, and has denied favouring any party.

Modi’s BJP has accused groups opposed to it of trying to undermine the country’s democracy by wrongly questioning legitimate electoral processes.

Election Commission data cited by the party shows about 130 million names, more than the population of Japan, have been deleted from electoral rolls during the verification exercise, including 63 million people who had relocated and 30 million who could not be traced.

The BJP and the Commission deny allegations of manipulation, although opposition parties say Muslim voters and other minorities, who are unlikely to support the Hindu nationalist ruling party, are disproportionately impacted by the deletions. 

The cockroach party, which began as an online satire, rapidly evolved into a pressure group, with street protests against exam paper leaks culminating in the resignation of Modi’s education minister.

The CJP has called its protests against Kumar “Season 2” on its social media handles, and said it would not stop until India’s election system was reformed.