Cockroach Janta Party plans nationwide grassroots movement to hold government accountable, says Saurav Das

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which led India's biggest student protests in years, is now planning to build a nationwide movement to hold the government accountable for its promises to young people, one of its senior members told Bloomberg.

The party is working to set up a grassroots organisation with workers in every district, spokesperson Saurav Das, a 27-year-old former investigative journalist, said in an interview in New Delhi.

Also read: CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke seeks Amit Shah's resignation, alleges home minister ordered July 20 crackdown


According to Bloomberg, the CJP has no immediate plans to register as a political party. Instead, it intends to travel across the country, hold public assemblies in villages to hear young people's concerns, and press the government on issues including unemployment, inflation and food security.

"The movement is about accountability. The issues that we want to raise are all going to be youth-centric," Das said, according to Bloomberg. "We want to take this movement to the grassroots because people at the grassroots face a lot of issues and nobody hears them out."

The CJP grew from a social media post into a mass student movement within about two months. Founded by Abhijeet Dipke, a graduate of Boston University, the party channelled youth anger over repeated exam paper leaks and other failures in the education system, Bloomberg reported.

The movement escalated dramatically after Delhi Police forcibly removed Sonam Wangchuk, an educator who had been on a 26-day hunger strike in solidarity with protesting students, from the demonstration site at Jantar Mantar and admitted him to a government hospital.

That action drew tens of thousands of additional protesters onto the streets of New Delhi, with demonstrations spreading to cities including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

Police used tear gas and batons against crowds attempting to march toward Parliament, fuelling further unrest. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on July 25, becoming the first minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 12 years in office to step down under public pressure.

In his resignation letter posted on X, Pradhan said he did not want student anger to be "exploited by anti-national forces," without elaborating. Following talks with the CJP, ministers J.P. Nadda and Jitendra Singh said all police cases against protesters would be dropped and the government would compensate families of students who died by suicide after the alleged paper leaks.

Pressure on police conduct continues

Das said the CJP would continue functioning as a "youth political movement" and press for an organisational structure with cadres in every district, acting as a pressure group, according to Bloomberg.

Also read: CJP stir: FIR against Noida woman over 'objectional' remarks on PM transferred to Delhi

CJP is also keeping up pressure on the government over allegations of excessive force by Delhi Police during the demonstrations. It has launched a digital evidence repository to collect photographs, videos and testimonies documenting alleged police misconduct, which has already received more than 500 submissions, Das told Bloomberg.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi raised the allegations in Parliament and demanded the resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah, whose ministry oversees the Delhi Police. Das said the CJP welcomed the scrutiny of the home minister, Bloomberg reported.

"No minister is above accountability," Das said. "All ministers serve at the pleasure of the people."