The Cockroach Janta Party, which started as a satirical political campaign, has announced that it will hold nationwide protests from Thursday, demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged mismanagement in the conduct of competitive exams.
Abhijit Dipke, the campaign’s founder, added that an indefinite sit-in demonstration will be started at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on June 20 if the demand is not met by then.
“We will not leave until accountability is delivered,” PTI quoted the group as saying.
The Cockroach Janta Party describes itself as a “political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth”.
On June 6, it staged a protest at Jantar Mantar to demand Pradhan’s resignation in the wake of the cancellation of the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical college admissions following allegations of a paper leak.
Students and job seekers have also alleged irregularities in the Class 12 exam conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education and the Staff Selection Commission test for government posts.
The nationwide protests will begin in Pune on Thursday. Demonstrations will be held in Lucknow on Friday. Protests will also be held in Amritsar, Bengaluru, Jaipur and Hyderabad, Dipke said.
He urged parents not to stop their children from speaking out against the “tyranny and wrong policies of the government”, PTI reported.
“The people who are in power can muzzle one dissenting voice, but they will not stop if we all start speaking out against the government,” he said. “Unity has power.”
Dipke added: “Paper leaks are taking place, servers are going down, and students are suffering. Who will take responsibility for this, and how long will this continue?”
The CJP was launched on May 16 in response to reports of remarks by Chief Justice Surya Kant on the previous day comparing some unemployed youngsters to “cockroaches”. Since then, the campaign has garnered more than 22 million followers on Instagram.
The chief justice claimed on May 16 that he had been misquoted by sections of the media and that it was baseless to say that he criticised young people in general. Kant claimed he had specifically criticised “those who have entered professions like the Bar [legal profession] with the aid of fake and bogus degrees”.
Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Sneha.
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