Election Commission Chief Gyanesh Kumar has been in the centre of a storm after the deletion of 130 million names from the electoral rolls in the world's largest democracy. Elections, which are the soul of a democracy, were sacrosanct, but then the thread is gone and those deleted from the rolls are the proof.

The Election Commission should have been independent, but some of the last agencies that were responsible for fair elections have lost all independence.

For long the BJP government has got away because of weakened agencies, but it appears that young people and others will no longer tolerate it as they demonstrate to restore what is left of a broken democracy.

The government's handling of the protests by opposition parties and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), demanding Kumar's ouster, by mass arresting them is a sign that the government is very worried, and that the CJP is not a flu of a night party but a real deal which will take what it wants. Arresting them and turning Delhi into a fortress city will only make it worse.

The resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is the only way out, but then it would again be seen as giving into the demands of the opposition. The government for now is reacting as a police state does when they are no longer in control.