Congress and CJP share goals but keep separate protest stages against election chief

Rahul Gandhi told reporters that the protests aimed at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged voter-list manipulation constitute a single movement, even though the Congress-led INDIA bloc and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) have not shared a stage. The two factions staged separate rallies—Congress on October 7, resulting in the detention of Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and CJP on October 10, detaining leaders such as Dipke, Das and Ranka.

Both protests were framed as opposition to the Election Commission, yet each party kept its distinct political programme. The divergence sharpened after CJP’s recent outreach in Assam, which attracted backing from Mamata Banerjee, Pinarayi Vijayan and Arvind Kejriwal, while Congress refrained from joining and instead condemned the mass arrests as police “thuggery.” Gandhi also announced that Congress and other INDIA bloc leaders would seek a meeting with the Chief Justice of India. Analysts note parallels with the 2011 anti-corruption movement, where the BJP and Congress accused each other of exploiting the same cause.