Abhijeet Dipke, the 30-year-old founder of the anti-establishment Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), says he fears arrest in India, adding that several of the party’s social media accounts have been censored and that he has received death threats.
In an interview with Reuters in the US, where he has lived for the past two years, Dipke said he has been working to regain control of his X account after a government block, recover his CJP Instagram page from unknown hackers, and ensure the safety of family members in both countries following threats of physical harm on WhatsApp.
The online Indian youth party on Wednesday unveiled, for the first time, plans to stage protests against the education minister, in a show of dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 12-year rule.
CJP’s growing popularity has drawn comparisons to Gen Z-led uprisings in neighboring Bangladesh and Nepal that toppled governments.
The party’s name references comments by India’s top judge, Chief Justice Surya Kant of the Supreme Court, who compared some unemployed youth to “cockroaches”.
The party has more than 22 million followers on Instagram, far surpassing the 9.3 million followers the BJP has built over more than a decade.
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