India’s “cockroach” youth movement is testing whether it can turn anger over education and jobs into a broader challenge to the country’s political establishment, two months after its protests helped force an education minister to resign over alleged entrance exam leaks.

Its latest target is another powerful institution: the country’s election watchdog. The shift marks a transition for the movement from high-profile demonstrations in New Delhi to a more diffuse campaign of school audits, meetings with authorities and demands for electoral reform.

Leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) on Thursday demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, after a local newspaper reported allegations that his handling of voter-list revisions could disenfranchise eligible voters and undermine confidence in India’s electoral process.

The Indian Express reported on Wednesday that two election commissioners had raised questions or expressed concern to Kumar at least 14 times in 10 months, mostly over the process of updating voter lists that began last year. The report alleged that Kumar repeatedly bypassed the two other election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi – who had formally raised objections – making critical decisions regarding voter lists, registration and deletions without their knowledge or consent.

The dispute has heightened scrutiny of a large-scale exercise to revise electoral rolls, with critics questioning whether voters excluded from draft lists will have adequate safeguards and opportunities to challenge their removal.

“When millions of names can disappear from draft rolls, the burden is on the commission to establish that every exclusion is lawful, transparent and subject to meaningful reviews,” said CJP National Convenor Abhijeet Dipke.

If Kumar did not resign by Saturday, the CJP would launch a nationwide protest, Dipke said.

The CJP began in May as a satirical online campaign after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant referred to unemployed young people as “cockroaches”. It then turned its attention to alleged irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) – a nationwide medical examination – and other grievances with the education system. Its protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi helped force Pradhan’s resignation in July. But the movement has since shifted from high-decibel demonstrations in the capital to less prominent school audits and meetings with authorities across at least six states.

The non-political movement, which has given voice to middle-class anxieties over opportunities for young people, highlights a growing challenge for political leaders trying to respond to one of the largest sections of India’s electorate.

The non-political movement, which has given voice to middle-class anxieties over opportunities for young people, highlights a growing challenge for political leaders trying to respond to one of the largest sections of India’s electorate. “There is a definite Generation Z factor coming up. That Generation Z factor is largely anti-establishment,” said Yashwant Deshmukh, an independent political commentator and founder of C-Voter, a public opinion research firm.

The younger generation’s grievances had exposed a cross-party challenge that all political parties were struggling with, Deshmukh said: connecting with young people’s hearts and minds. India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is now in its third successive term – this time at the head of a multiparty coalition – has gradually recovered ground in state elections after losing its outright majority in 2024.

The BJP’s dominance has only grown amid a fragmented opposition led by the Congress party, which held sway for decades following India’s independence in 1947. Analysts say it is too early to predict whether the cockroach movement could trigger broader political changes ahead of a string of elections next year in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

“It is going to create problems for anybody in power in those states. It is not one-way traffic,” Deshmukh said, referring to the BJP’s political fortunes. On Friday, Congress was set to stage protest marches at state election offices across India to demand Kumar’s arrest.

“No matter what narrative is created by the opposition and Congress, eventually it will come down to what kind of party infrastructure they have to turn that traction from Gen Z into votes against the BJP,” Deshmukh added.

“No matter what narrative is created by the opposition and Congress, eventually it will come down to what kind of party infrastructure they have to turn that traction from Gen Z into votes against the BJP,” Deshmukh added.

The cockroach movement’s expansion beyond education has coincided with what independent political commentator Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay described as a change in India’s “political drift”. Demanding the removal of the chief election commissioner was likely to catalyse that change further, Mukhopadhyay said.

“What has happened is that the movement has triggered the erasure of fear from the minds of youngsters,” he said, pointing to a protest against the gang-rape of a 17-year-old girl on Thursday by students from Lady Shri Ram College for Women in Delhi as an example.

But Mukhopadhyay warned that the protests did not mean the BJP was facing an electoral rout, saying next year’s state elections would provide a clearer test of its popularity.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi of Congress has also been seeking to connect with Gen Z voters through a nationwide student outreach programme called (Echo of Students), aimed at amplifying grievances over the education and examination systems. The initiative had given Gandhi greater credibility among young people, Mukhopadhyay said.

Meanwhile, a high-powered panel led by technology entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani is examining structural reforms to the NEET. The panel was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after weeks of protests against alleged irregularities in the exam, which culminated in Pradhan’s resignation and the government agreeing to several of the movement’s demands. Its report is due by the end of this month.

The cockroach movement had also been trying to build a presence beyond the capital, with its leaders personally inspecting facilities in government schools across different states, said Harsh Ramaswamy, an independent political commentator.

“Their network is growing well. What they have not been able to do is attract more people to do the job in a decentralised way,” he said, pointing out that visiting India’s roughly 1 million state schools would be physically impossible without support from other groups.

The audits had struggled to capture national attention, partly because the CJP’s founders had refused to align with any political party, reducing local media interest, Ramaswamy said.

Pradhan’s resignation also appeared to reduce the movement’s momentum, he added, as many young supporters felt the job was done. By Biman Mukherji