India's Gen Z demands poll chief's resignation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced renewed political pressure on Friday as the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and a separate coalition of student and activist groups staged protests demanding the resignation of India's election chief over a disputed voter-roll revision. The CJP planned a rally in Mumbai, while student and civil society groups gathered at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar – the venue where the students protested for days in July, forcing resignation of the country's education minis-ter. The party said it would expand demonstrations nationwide in the coming days. Dozens of protesters gathered at the Delhi site on Friday morning, but police bundled some into buses and took them away. Several nearby metro stations remained closed, while security was tightened in the barricaded area with hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel surrounding the protest site. In Mumbai, hundreds of police officers were seen assembling around the location where protesters were ex-pected to gather later in the afternoon. Authorities in Delhi had warned against unauthorised assemblies as tensions mounted around the demonstrations. The protests mark the latest escalation in a dispute that has brought unprecedented scrutiny on India's Elec-tion Commission. Protesters allege that voter rolls were manipulated to benefit Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), allegations rejected by both the commission and the government. Pressure on Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar intensified last month after the Indian Express reported that his two deputies had formally raised concerns at least 14 times over the previous 10 months about voter-list revisions, registration procedures and the commission's digital systems. The controversy centres on a nationwide voter-verification exercise launched last year. Critics say the process has resulted in millions of eligible voters being removed from electoral rolls, while the Election Commission says it is intended to eliminate duplicate, deceased or otherwise ineligible voters. Opposition parties led by Congress are also due to begin separate protests on October 6, with Kumar's resig-nation among their demands. The demonstrations add another front to the broader political confrontation over the voter-verification exercise.