The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Thursday demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and an independent inquiry into the Election Commission’s centralised system for processing electoral-roll decisions, with the party’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke warning of a nationwide agitation if Kumar did not step down within 48 hours.

At a press conference in New Delhi, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka alleged that the centralisation of electoral-roll functions has created a system in which a voter can be found eligible by a constituency-level Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), but still remain outside the final roll because the decision cannot be recorded through the software.

The allegation comes amid reports that two Election Commissioners had raised objections over the centralisation of voter-database access and the functioning of ECI-Net (software used in the SIR process).

In Goa, 97 voters reportedly remained excluded from the final roll despite ERO-level decisions in their favour; the report said the facility to record their inclusion was controlled from Delhi.