NEW DELHI — Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday accused "anti-India gangs" and some politicians of plotting Bangladesh-style unrest through the protests over India's voter rolls, as the government stepped up its attack on a youth-led movement demanding the election chief's resignation.

"Regime change in India is absolutely possible — but only through elections, not through Soros," Rijiju wrote on X, invoking the billionaire investor George Soros. In 2024 the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Congress leader Sonia Gandhi of ties to a group funded by Soros' foundation, a charge the Congress dismissed.

The remarks harden the government's line against a movement that Reuters has described as one of the biggest political challenges Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced in his 12 years in power. Youth groups, student unions and opposition parties have protested almost daily this month against a revision of electoral rolls that removed more than 130 million names.

In his post, Rijiju said a conspiracy like "the violent incident that occurred in Bangladesh and the riots, arson, and looting that took place in France" had been hatched for India. "Anti-India gangs and some politicians had colluded to incite the youth and spread violence on our streets," he wrote, adding that those behind it forgot that India is neither Bangladesh nor France.

He shared a video featuring Neha Bora, president of the left-wing All India Students' Association, and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, Outlook reported.

The minister spoke a day after Delhi police released Abhijeet Dipke, the 31-year-old founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Police detained him on Friday as he left a house in central Delhi for a flag-waving rally at Central Park in Connaught Place.

Live video posted by the group showed officers hauling Dipke into a police car after a brief argument, Reuters reported. "I have not broken any law right now…how can you detain me," he asked them. Police said he was held under preventive provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and would be brought before a Special Executive Magistrate.

About 150 people were detained across central Delhi that evening, among them Bora, Open magazine reported. Smaller protests took place in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Patna.

Dipke walked out of a police station on Saturday afternoon, waving to reporters, France 24 reported. "Now just waiting for my brothers to be free," he wrote on X. He was referring to two CJP leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, who were jailed for five days after climbing a fence into Jantar Mantar, a long-standing protest site that police have declared off-limits, to unfurl the national flag.

It was Dipke's second detention in a week. Police held him at Delhi airport on Oct. 10 as he flew in for an earlier rally, and he was freed the next day.

The protests target Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision, a state-by-state re-verification of voter lists that began last year. The Election Commission says the names removed include 28 million people who had died, 63 million who had moved and 30 million who could not be traced, and that anyone wrongly deleted can re-enrol.

Opposition parties say the deletions fall disproportionately on Muslims and other minorities, an allegation the commission and the BJP reject. The latest wave of protests followed an Indian Express report that Kumar's two fellow commissioners had raised internal objections over voter list changes, registration procedures and digital systems.

The row over the phrase "regime change" intensified on Thursday, when Bhushan told a press conference alongside Dipke and Bora: "Yes, we all want regime change." Dipke kept his distance from the slogan. "We are not saying we want a regime change," he told a separate news conference that night, according to The Week, adding that the CJP wanted Kumar removed.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh seized on the remarks the next day in Lucknow, accusing the Congress and its allies of seeking a change of government along the lines of Bangladesh, where a 2024 uprising toppled Sheikh Hasina. "Instead of channeling the energy of the youth toward nation-building, they are being used as pawns in the politics of anarchy," he said, according to Reuters.

The Congress has pushed back. "'Regime change' is normal in a democracy," former finance minister P. Chidambaram wrote on X on Saturday, adding that the opposition's duty was to oppose in politics, expose in Parliament and depose through elections.

The dispute is also before the Supreme Court. On Thursday a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notice to the commission and to Kumar on a petition from Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, and other opposition leaders seeking internal commission files on the revision.

"Issuing notice does not mean that we are condemning anything," Kant said, The Week reported. The court also sought replies from the federal government and Delhi police on petitions challenging the removal of Jantar Mantar as an approved protest venue.

Under the constitution, Kumar can be removed only in the same way as a Supreme Court judge, through a motion in Parliament. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan rejected opposition notices seeking his removal in April.

The revision itself is pressing ahead. Karnataka is scheduled to publish its final electoral roll on Oct. 27, and Maharashtra's final roll is due on Nov. 4.