Cockroach Janta Party’s X account has been withheld in India days after the satirical political campaign emerged online in response to remarks made by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant about sections of Indian youth.
The account, operating under the username CJP_2029, is now displaying an “Account Withheld” notice on X, stating: “@CJP_2029 has been withheld in IN in response to a legal demand.”
The development was confirmed by the campaign’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communication strategist, who shared a screenshot of the pop-up message on social media.
“As expected, Cockroach Janta Party’s account has been withheld in India,” Dipke wrote in the caption accompanying the screenshot.
According to X, accounts may be withheld when the platform receives a “valid and properly scoped request from an authorised entity”.
“Such withholdings will be limited to the specific jurisdiction that has issued the valid legal demand or where the content has been found to violate local law(s),” the platform said.
The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) first surfaced online on 16 May as a satirical digital movement after remarks made by the CJI during a hearing on 15 May triggered outrage across social media platforms.
Referring to a lawyer’s conduct on social media, Justice Surya Kant had said: “There are youngsters, like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in the profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists, and other activists, and they start attacking everyone.”
The comments drew criticism online and led to the creation of the CJP campaign, headed by Dipke, which positioned itself as a protest movement against unemployment, institutional disconnect and perceived attacks on younger voices.
Justice Surya Kant later issued a clarification on 16 May, saying he had been “misquoted by a section of the media”.
Dipke studied journalism in Pune for his undergraduate degree before moving to the United States for higher education. He later completed a master’s degree in Public Relations at Boston University.
Between 2020 and 2022, he volunteered with the Aam Aadmi Party’s social media team.
Although the CJP initially appeared to many users as another short-lived meme page, the campaign rapidly evolved into a wider digital movement centred on frustrations over unemployment, exam paper leaks, political accountability and concerns among younger users about growing disconnect between institutions and Gen Z.
The campaign’s social media traction surged in recent days. Its Instagram account, operating under the handle @cockroachjantaparty, crossed the 10-million follower mark on 21 May.
In comparison, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s official Instagram account has around 8.7 million followers, while the Congress account has approximately 13.2 million followers. The Aam Aadmi Party, founded in 2012, has roughly 1.9 million followers.
