The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has called supporters to Central Park in Connaught Place at 5 p.m. Friday for a rally named 'Lehra Do Tiranga' — 'wave the tricolour' — despite prohibitory orders and a police warning to stay away.

Authorities closed the park for two days citing 'administrative reasons' and set up metal barricades at key intersections, while thousands of additional police officers were deployed across the capital.

Police said they might allow a small group to wave the flag and sing the anthem at another location, but founder Abhijeet Dipke refused to back down, saying he is ready to be arrested.

What began five months ago as a campaign over exam paper leaks has escalated into a direct confrontation over the right to protest itself.

Last Saturday, tens of thousands of police sealed roads, shut metro stations and detained protesters before they could reach Jantar Mantar, and the BBC witnessed dozens of detentions including journalists.

Police then removed Jantar Mantar — an 18th-century observatory near parliament long used for dissent — from Delhi's approved protest sites. The CJP accused authorities of pushing demonstrators away from the seat of power to make their protests easier to ignore.

Two senior organisers, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were sent to five days of judicial custody on Wednesday after returning to Jantar Mantar a day after it was declared off-limits, climbing a locked gate and unfurling the Indian flag while shouting slogans against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Police said they entered the restricted site without permission and violated the conditions of their earlier release.

'Imagine being jailed in your own country for waving your own national flag,' Dipke wrote on X. Hours before Friday's rally, Delhi police served Dipke a notice barring him from marching, telling him a march without permission would violate restrictions in place.

The movement is demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls that critics say removed more than 130 million names, risking legitimate voters' franchise.

Election authorities say the changes removed duplicate, deceased and fraudulent entries, and both the commission and the government deny favouring the BJP.

Founded in May after India's chief justice likened some unemployed young people to cockroaches, the CJP turned the insult into a rallying cry and forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign. Al Jazeera reports some analysts see Modi facing the worst crisis of his tenure since 2014.

The Delhi High Court declined to block the Connaught Place protest after a local trader petitioned over traffic and business disruption, and a parallel 'Lehra Do Tiranga' rally in Mumbai at Azad Maidan received police approval, according to DW.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi condemned the arrests of CJP organisers and called for Jantar Mantar to be reopened, while Home Minister Amit Shah accused opposition parties of spreading falsehoods about the voter-verification exercise.

Whether Dipke and his supporters reach Central Park remains uncertain — police barricades and mass detentions kept many away last weekend, and Dipke was seen with officers as an Instagram livestream showed him asked to sign papers.