New Delhi: Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Thursday (September 24) demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar within 48 hours due to the ongoing controversy surrounding Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls adding that a nationwide protest would be launched in case he did not resign.“CEC is the biggest anti-national. Gyanesh Kumar is the biggest anti-national of this country. He should resign immediately because he is the biggest threat to India’s democracy. What did democracy mean in our country? Democracy meant that the people would elect the government. Since Gyanesh Kumar became the CEC, the government has been deciding who will be allowed to vote and who will not. Is this democracy? What kind of definition of democracy is this? You have turned the entire concept of democracy upside down,” Dipke said in a press conference in New Delhi.“If within 48 hours Gyanesh Kumar doesn’t resign, the Cockroach Janata Party will start a nationwide agitation. We won’t step back till the time Gyanesh Kumar resigns,” the CJP founder added. He was accompanied by the outfit’s co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka.Also read: Who is Gyanesh Kumar, the One-Man Election Commission Acting in Violation of Article 324?Besides the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, the CJP has demanded: a) initiation of criminal proceedings against the CEC and a clarification on who gave him orders, b) putting all upcoming elections on hold and freezing the SIR, restoring the January 2025 voter list and setting up an independent inquiry into the entire SIR decision-making process, and c) repealing the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 pertaining to the appointment of election commissioners and enacting a new law that inspires public confidence, with the active participation of members of civil society.‘Panic button was pressed’Slamming the Narendra Modi-led Union government, Dipke underlined that the “panic button was pressed” when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to reach the majority mark in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.“The BJP could not achieve a majority in the 2024 elections. The panic button was pressed when they failed to achieve a majority. They had come down to 240 seats after raising the slogan of ‘400 paar (over 400 seats)’. After that, they realised that the mood of the country was changing, and the regional forces had emerged very strongly,” he said.“Whether it was Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra, the NCP [Nationalist Congress Party], M.K. Stalin [in Tamil Nadu], Pinarayi Vijayan [in Kerala], Arvind Kejriwal [in Delhi] or Mamata Banerjee [in West Bengal], all these chief ministers have been defeated one by one. This cannot be a coincidence. You can see a pattern. All these chief ministers had come together and campaigned unitedly in 2024. How have they been eliminated one by one?” Dipke questioned.Also read: EC Ducks, Tries to Make Light of Serious Questions Emerging From Revelations of Differences in CommissionFurther, he pointed out that in West Bengal, 50,000 votes were deleted from Banerjee’s seat, and she lost by around 15,000 votes. Similarly, one lakh votes were deleted from Stalin’s seat, and he lost by around 45,000 votes. In Delhi, 40,000 votes were deleted from Kejriwal’s seat, and he lost by around 4,000–5,000 votes.“We are not concerned about any opposition party. But in a democracy if you try to finish the entire opposition then will it remain a democracy. Is it a free and fair election? This is not a recent problem, in 2015-16, the government in Madhya Pradesh was toppled, the government in Karnataka was also toppled. Even in Goa we saw how a party which had merely ten seats formed government overnight,” Dipke said.‘Conspiracy plotted against youth of the country’In the press conference, Das alleged that the CEC was attempting to plot a conspiracy against the youth of the country.“Look, this is a very big conspiracy being plotted against the youth of the country, and we, the people of the country, will absolutely not tolerate it. As Abhijit said, we have no concern with the Opposition or with any particular political party, whether it is the BJP, Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, or TMC. These are not issues of these parties; these are issues concerning the youth of the country,” the CJP co-convenor said.Also read: Inside the ECI: Two Commissioners, 14 Objections, and No AnswersHe added, “We are putting forward three demands. Demand number one: the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, initiation of criminal proceedings against him immediately, and an answer to the question: Who gave Gyanesh Kumar the orders? Who gave him the orders? Demand number two: immediately put all upcoming elections on hold. Freeze the SIR and roll back to the January 2025 voter list. Constitute an independent inquiry commission that will inspire public confidence and examine all the decision-making processes related to the SIR. The Supreme Court is equally culpable. Therefore, we also demand from the Supreme Court that all files related to the SIR and all files concerning the decision-making process of the SIR be immediately seized and placed in the court’s custody, so that tomorrow nobody can say that a fire broke out in the Election Commission of India building and the files were destroyed or went missing. Demand number three: repeal the 2023 law on the appointment of the Election Commissioners [ECs] of India and enact a new law that inspires public confidence, with the active participation of members of civil society.”Gyanesh Kumar is in the eye of storm since yesterday after The Indian Express has reported on official communication from within the three-member ECI which establishes that most orders that have come in the past ten months pertaining to the controversial SIR, ostensibly from the commission, have not had the consent of the majority of the ECs as they have raised objections officially at least 14 times.So far, 12 crore names have been deleted from the electoral rolls across the country via the SIR process. IE report suggests that the decisions related to the SIR taken by the CEC were largely in violation of Article 324 itself, which states that all decisions in the ECI will be taken unanimously as far as possible, and with the majority in agreement.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.