India news: 'Cockroaches' back Gandhi's rally against election chief

Here are the biggest headlines from India on Thursday, October 29:

Cyclone Arnab on Wednesday battered Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, damaging homes, farmland and electricity infrastructure, authorities said.

The cyclone made a prolonged landfall early Wednesday as a "very severe cyclonic storm" in the union territory of Puducherry and southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh.

At least three people were killed even as the storm weakened while moving inland. Two women were electrocuted in separate incidents in the port city of Visakhapatnam, while another person was killed when a tree fell in East Godavari district, officials said.

Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu later said 14 of the state's districts were badly affected, requesting urgent assistance from the central government.

The cyclone damaged 79,000 acres of crops and dozens of homes. The worst hit area was the state's fertile Konaseema district where banana and coconut plantations suffered extensively.

While the eastern state of Odisha seemed to be less impacted initially, heavy rains and winds lashed several districts there on Wednesday evening. State authorities reported landslides, uprooted trees and damaged homes and infrastructure, but zero casualties.

On Thursday morning, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah reiterated the central government's support to the impacted states.

"In the wake of Cyclone Arnab, spoke with the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Odisha and Chhattisgarh and assured them of every assistance to mitigate the hardship of the people in the face of the disaster," he wrote in a post on X, adding that disaster relief teams were continuing operations on a "war footing."

India's political pressure group Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), last evening, decided to back the opposition bloc's upcoming November 1 rally, marking a shift in protest strategy.

The CJP said India's election commission has undermined people's right to choose their leaders through the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which reportedly deleted over 13 crore (130 million) names from voter lists across the country.

That includes people who have died, moved away or were appearing on lists more than once, but critics argue the massive number is also likely to include a large number of eligible voters.

The CJP, several student organizations and opposition parties — with Indian National Congress' Rahul Gandhi at the helm — have been protesting against the revisions and alleged irregularities purported by India's election chief for over a month now.

"Gyanesh Kumar has lost the trust required to oversee free and fair elections. His resignation is therefore necessary to restore the credibility and independence of the Election Commission," the CJP said in a statement published on X by founder Abhijeet Dipke.

"Our constitution gave every adult citizen the right to vote. It is our responsibility to ensure that no eligible citizen is deprived of that. The Cockraoch Janta Party will therefore support all organizations fighting for free and fair election in our country," it said.

Dipke's caption read: "The Cockroach Janta Party extends its support to the INDIA Bloc's November 1 rally. Nation above all!"

The CJP and Gandhi's Indian National Congress have been running parallel campaigns so far with similar demands. However, they have not expressed direct support or held joint rallies before this, possibly in an effort not to alienate people who may relate to one group but not to the other.

However, the CJP now has limited choices. Its leaders were detained and arrested while protesting earlier this month and made to sign a peace bond which prohibits them from calling for mass protestsin central Delhi. Lending their support to someone else's call for protest could be the loophole they needed.

Hello! and welcome back to DW's India news blog.

This is Mahima Kapoor reporting from Studio Delhi, where the weather is cooling down by the day but the Indian opposition's campaign against a controversial revision of electoral rolls is heating up.

After months of distance, India's Cockroach movement has thrown its weight behind the country's largest alliance of parties opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

This move came just days before an massive rally led by opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, to demand poll body chief Gyanesh Kumar's resignation and roll back the revision to voter lists. What remains to be seen is if, when and how the Modi government will respond.

Speaking of chaos, a tropical cyclonic storm dubbed 'Arnab' tore through India's east coast on Wednesday. Local authorities in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, which faced the brunt of the storm, reported toppled trees, disrupted powers, and significant damage to property, crops and lives.

Moving away from home, India's largest right-wing hindutva organization seems to have new "friends" in the US, looking to improve the group's image and gather support of Indians overseas.