The country where the Kitchen Cockroach Party was founded. After four days it is more popular than the incumbent prime minister's line-up
India's new satirical party, the Kitchen Cockroach Party (CJP), born out of the outrage of the country's youth, has gained millions more followers than Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on social media in less than four days.
The cockroach party has many followers PHOTO: X
The party, Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), has amassed more than 12 million followers on Instagram within days, far more than the ruling BJP party's 8.7 million followers.
CJP founder, 30-year-old strategist Abhijeet Dipke, celebrated this major success on the X platform by launching a direct mockery of the official tagline: “They said they were the biggest party in the world! It only lasted 4 days! Don't underestimate the power of youth,” writes Agerpres.
The move came in response to remarks made last week by Chief Justice Surya Kant, who compared unemployed youth and digital activists to “kitchen bugs and social parasites”.
In just 96 hours, what started as a joke turned into a massive mobilization that has already registered more than 160,000 official members on its website.
Only the unemployed, the lazy and the whiners
To sign up new followers, the party ironically requires the fulfillment of four criteria: to be unemployed, to be lazy, to spend at least 11 hours a day online and to have “the ability to complain about the workplace”.
However, behind the humor hides a real crisis affecting Generation Z in the Asian country, where more than 50% of university graduates are unemployed and where social outrage has grown following the recent cancellation of the NEET-UG national exam (India's national entrance exam for medical students – no) due to tests leaked to the media.
The CJP's official manifesto includes four drastic demands against the system: banning retired judges from receiving parliamentary mandates, arresting authorities under anti-terrorism laws if votes are removed, ensuring 50% female representation in the Cabinet and canceling the licenses of media outlets owned by tycoons Ambani and Adani, among others.
A real challenge
Facing criticism from pro-government sectors, who accuse the CJP of inflating its numbers through automated accounts, Dipke posted an alleged screenshot of the platform's audience on his X platform profile.”94% of followers are from India. Keep an eye on Instagram, we're about to take over”he wrote on X.
Behind this phenomenon is a young Indian who currently lives in the United States and who worked between 2020 and 2023 in the communications team of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a center-left opposition party with considerable political power in the capital New Delhi.
According to Dipke himself, given the unexpected impact of his project, he is considering returning to India from the United States, where he was pursuing graduate studies, to channel the discontent and turn the parody into a real political platform.
Although the movement is reminiscent of that of Generation Z, which shook the governments of neighboring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh, the young founder distanced himself from that kind of violence and stated that young Indians are “more mature and more aware” and they will express their dissatisfaction through democratic means.
