Cockroach Janta Party’s founder says Indian government took website down

The founder of an online political satire movement that mocked India’s governing party has accused the government of taking down the group’s official website.

Abhijeet Dipke, who’s currently studying at Boston University and founded the so-called Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), said on X on Saturday that the government had taken down the “iconic” website.

Dipke launched the website and accompanying social media accounts a week ago in response to comments made by India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant earlier this month, in which he compared unemployed young people to cockroaches.

Kant has since clarified his remarks, saying his comments were aimed at people who acquire fraudulent degrees, and described the country’s youth as “the pillars of a developed India”.

Dipke said his personal Instagram account had been hacked, as well as the Instagram account of the CJP. The CJP’s Instagram page has attracted more than 22 million followers since it was launched a week ago. The party’s initials are a play on the acronym used by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In comparison to the CJP’s Instagram following, the BJP – the world’s largest political party – currently has more than nine million followers.

According to Dipke, one million people have signed up to join the movement in the past week. The CJP is campaigning for Indian Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign, with Dipke saying 600,000 people had signed the movement’s petition. Large protests have broken out across the country in recent weeks, calling for Pradhan’s resignation, after allegations surfaced that exam papers had been leaked, forcing the cancellation of a government-run medical entrance test.

Speaking to Al Jazeera earlier this week, Dipke explained the thinking behind his rapidly growing movement.

“Those in power think citizens are cockroaches and parasites,” he said. “They should know that cockroaches breed in rotten places. That’s what India is today.”