Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) convenor Abhijeet Dipke’s self-styled “school movement” is beginning to look less like a campaign for educational reform and more like a political stunt in search of a scandal. The deeper he ventures into Maharashtra’s schools, the more his own methods are coming under scrutiny. And the latest episode in Latur is particularly revealing. Dipke reportedly arrived expecting to discover the kind of institutional collapse that makes for convenient Insta

Mumbai: In an unexpected surgical strike, the Cockroach Janta Party has questioned why a massive corpus of thousands of crores of rupees, lying in the Prime Minister CARES Fund, is kept idle when there are dire needs for funds in various sectors, particularly government schools – kicking off a new political storm – on Wednesday. CJP Founder Abhijeet Dipke today directly asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on what he termed as “so much of public money lying untouched and unutil

Regardless of whether or not the CJP wins an election, its rise signals a changing relationship between young Indians and political power. It would be tempting to dismiss the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) as another internet curiosity destined to enjoy a brief moment of virality before disappearing into the digital ether. Politics, however, has a habit of taking jokes more seriously than their creators intended. Whether the CJP eventually becomes a political force, lends its en

Mumbai: In a glaring display of internal friction within Maharashtra’s ruling Mahayuti alliance, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has reportedly issued a stern reprimand to Shiv Sena leader and social justice minister Sanjay Shirsat. The dressing-down comes in the wake of Shirsat’s highly controversial visit to the family of Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the newly floated Cockroach Janta Party. The meeting has touched a raw nerve within the Bharatiya Janata Party, turning

The NEET protests at Jantar Mantar highlighted a democratic paradox: the right to protest is fundamental, but so is the state’s duty to restore order when violence erupts. The resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan marked an unusually swift act of political accountability. It acknowledged the gravity of the NEET examination fiasco, a scandal that had shaken the confidence of millions of aspirants and their families. The government cancelled the tainted ex

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena (UBT) became the first political party to openly support the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) launched by a Maharashtra youth Abhijeet Dipke who launched a huge protest in New Delhi on Saturday. In a strong statement, SS (UBT) President and ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray threw his weight behind the CJP as thousands of youngsters hit the streets of New Delhi in the scorching sun, not for politics but for their future. “Those whom we call the architects of the nation's

Mumbai: Nearly a month after unleashing a tsunami on social media, Abhijeet Dipke – who launched the ‘Cockroach Janta Party’ – is likely to return home early tomorrow (June 6) from the USA where he had gone to study and hunt for a job. In a departure message before boarding the flight, Dipke said: “On my way to India… Leaving my fate in the hands of the Constitution. #JaiBhim,” amid speculation that there could be repercussions for his recent statements which have earned hi

Abhijeet Dipke’s viral rebellion looks less like a spontaneous youth uprising than India’s anti-BJP ecosystem discovering meme warfare. Indian politics has always had room for the absurd. A country that once elevated sadhus, film stars and anti-corruption crusaders into national prominence was probably destined, sooner or later, to produce a Cockroach Janta Party. What is more revealing is how quickly India’s habitual anti-Modi commentariat which includes the activist-lawyer