False claim: Image of Madrid protest shared as New Delhi anti-Modi demonstration. (AFP)
Thousands of protesters, including supporters of opposition parties and the youth-led satirical Cockroach Janta Party, marched in New Delhi in October 2026 demanding the election chief’s resignation in a fresh challenge to the Indian government. An image circulating online that purportedly shows these demonstrations actually depicts a protest in Spain more than a month earlier.
A Bengali-language Facebook post shared on 8 October 2026 reads: “There is an anti-Modi movement in India once again. This time, the people will force Modi to resign,” referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The post includes a photo of a large crowd gathered in a public square.
The image circulated on Facebook alongside claims linked to protests in India calling for the resignation of Election Commission of India (ECI) chief Gyanesh Kumar over a nationwide voter-roll revision. The Indian Express reported that certain decisions connected to the revision process, which resulted in the removal of millions of names from draft electoral lists, may have been taken without the approval of two of the three election commissioners. The ECI has firmly rejected these allegations, stating that all procedures were carried out in accordance with the law.
New Delhi became a focal point for the demonstrations. The youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which has a large online following, launched street protests on 2 October that drew thousands of participants. Critics and observers have pointed out that the CJP’s sustained campaign-style mobilisation, and the actors promoting it, mirror tactics used in Bangladesh’s student-led protests, which ultimately contributed to the destabilisation and ouster of the elected government there. The pattern of framing routine administrative processes as existential crises and channelling public discontent into street pressure has raised concerns about similar attempts to undermine institutional stability and elected authority in India.
The circulating image remains unrelated to any of the protests in India.
A reverse image search on Google using the falsely shared image led to a Facebook video published by Spanish media outlet El Mundo on 3 September. The Spanish-language caption states that the footage showed thousands of people gathering at Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles during demonstrations held in support of the autonomous city of Ceuta.
The clip shows protesters waving Spanish flags and carrying banners with Spanish-language slogans. More than 70,000 migrants had entered Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta in late July, swimming or crossing on foot from neighbouring Morocco in a chaotic influx that left scores dead and fuelled fresh tensions within the European Union over migration.
El Mundo reported that the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces had called for rallies across the country on 2 September, coinciding with Ceuta Day, in support of the autonomous city. An AFP photo from the 2 September demonstrations similarly shows thousands of people gathered outside Madrid’s Palacio de Cibeles. Google Street View imagery of Plaza de Cibeles matches the falsely shared image.
The photo therefore originates from the Madrid demonstration in early September and does not depict any protest in India.
The image circulating online does not show anti-Modi protests or demonstrations in New Delhi demanding the resignation of the Election Commission chief. It is a photograph of a protest held in Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles on 2-3 September in support of the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta.
Claims that the image depicts large-scale street protests in India are therefore false. The actual protests that took place in New Delhi in early October, including those organised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), are unrelated to the photograph being shared.
