The founder of an online satirical political movement that mocked India's ruling party has accused authorities of taking down the group's official website.
Abhijeet Dipke, currently studying at Boston University and founder of the 'Cockroach Janta Party' (CJP), wrote on X on Saturday that the government removed the 'symbolic' website.
Dipke launched the website and accompanying social media accounts a week earlier, reacting to comments by India's Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant earlier this month, in which he compared unemployed youth to cockroaches. Kant later clarified his remarks targeted buyers of fake degrees and described youth as 'pillars of a developed India.'
Dipke said his personal Instagram account was hacked, along with the CJP Instagram account. The CJP Instagram page attracted over 22 million followers since its launch a week ago. The party's acronym is a play on the abbreviation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Meanwhile, the BJP – the world's largest political party – currently has over 9 million followers on Instagram.
According to Dipke, one million people have registered to join the movement in the past week. CJP is campaigning for the resignation of India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, with 600,000 people signing the movement's petition. Major protests erupted across the country in recent weeks, calling for Pradhan's resignation after allegations of exam paper leaks forced the cancellation of a government-administered medical entrance exam.
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. They should know that cockroaches breed in places of rot. That's what India is today.'
