Withheld in India. Back Within Hours. The Cockroach Will Not Die.

New Delhi- It was, by any measure, one of the most strikingly rapid rises in Indian digital political history. In just five days since its founding on 16 May, the Cockroach Janta Party had built an Instagram following of 13.9 million, surpassing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's 8.8 million and closing in fast on the Congress party's 13.3 million. Its X account, @CJP_2029, had gathered over 165,000 followers and, by some estimates, had at its peak exceeded 201,000.

Then, on Thursday noon, users in India attempting to access @CJP_2029 were met with a stark notice: "Account has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand."

The government had silenced the cockroach. The cockroach, as is its nature, was back, with its new handle @Cockroachisback and a tagline "Cockroaches don’t die!", 36,000 followers stronger, before the afternoon was out.

Founder Abhijeet Dipke, the 30-year-old Boston University public relations graduate and former AAP social media strategist, did not appear surprised. In fact, he had told followers days earlier that he expected surveillance, scrutiny and attempts to silence the movement. He had already warned that the account had faced hacking attempts the previous day. "As expected, Cockroach Janta Party's account has been withheld in India," he posted on his personal X handle, attaching a screenshot of the withholding notice for all to see. The tone was not of alarm, it was of quiet vindication.

Speaking with The Red Mike, Abhijeet even said, "I will be arrested once i land in India." Trollers have been attacking him, calling the CJP audiences fake and from Pakistan and Bangladesh. One social media user claimed: Citizens from Pakistan, Bangladesh & USA forms 77% of their Insta followers. India contributes only 9%.

In response, Abhijeet posted stats of the CJP audience, 94% followers from India.

Under X's (formerly Twitter's) content moderation policy, accounts may be withheld in specific countries in response to what the platform describes as a "valid and properly scoped request from an authorised entity." The platform's own transparency note states that such withholdings are "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 account remained accessible outside India users in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere could still view @CJP_2029 without restriction.

The withholding of the CJP account immediately drew sharp reactions from opposition figures and civil society voices. Senior advocate and prominent judicial activist Prashant Bhushan himself no stranger to battles over free speech at the Supreme Court level, having been convicted of contempt for tweets criticising the judiciary in 2020 , condemned the account withholding, describing it as an attack on freedom of expression and political satire. His voice lent particular weight to the debate given his own history of confronting state censorship through legal channels. Taking to x, Bhushan wrote, " The Modi govt is shitting bricks at the meteoric rise of the Cockroach Janta Party. They are trying everything to derail them, by setting up parallel accounts, defaming them & now ordering the blocking of their accounts. Their Instagram followers are now over 13.9M (almost double of BJP. But like cockroaches they will continue to rise!"

Veteran journalist Rajdeep Sardesai stated in a post, " I hear Cockroach Janata Party accounts are being blocked. Small warning: cockroaches have outlived empires, pandemics and probably a few IT cells too. Block one, ten more emerge from the dark corners. MIND IT!"

AAP leader Manish Sisodia, the former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister who spent considerable time in judicial custody before securing bail, also expressed solidarity with the movement. Both figures had, in prior days, already been part of the broader wave of politicians engaging with the CJP's viral rise. TMC MP Mahua Moitra had earlier declared she "too would like to join the CJP," describing herself as a "card carrying member of the Anti National Party." TMC MP Kirti Azad had jokingly asked what the eligibility criteria were, to which the CJP handle quipped that winning the 1983 Cricket World Cup was qualification enough. But Thursday's account withholding shifted the tone from playful banter to something sharper, a live free-speech controversy with the government's fingerprints, circumstantially at least, all over it.

Who is Abhijeet Dipke?

Dipke is a 30-year-old from Pune who has identified himself publicly as a Dalit a detail that adds a significant social dimension to a movement already saturated with questions of caste, exclusion and institutional discrimination. A media studies graduate, he was pursuing a Master's in Public Relations at Boston University in the United States when the CJI controversy erupted. He built the CJP website within 24 hours using AI tools including Claude and ChatGPT.

Between 2020 and 2023, he served as a volunteer with AAP's social media team, driving the meme campaigns and digital messaging that helped AAP win the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections. He was part of AAP's election war room and reported to IT media head Ankit Lal. His past social media activity has been politically vocal and is now being scrutinised by right-wing commentators who see the CJP as an AAP-linked operation rather than a spontaneous youth movement.

The Cautions, the Critics and the "Falcon" Warning

Not everyone has embraced the Cockroach Janta Party without reservation. In the hours surrounding Thursday's account withholding, Team Rising Falcon, a collective fighting hate speech and hate crime, posted a warning specifically directed at Muslim youth, cautioning them to keep their distance from the CJP. The warning, shared widely on X advised, "Do not let online provocation push you toward violence, unrest, illegal activities, or emotionally charged trends. In the end, it is always ordinary people who suffer the consequences the most. Many people may encourage protests, road blockades, aggression, or confrontation online, but when situations spiral out of control, those easily identified by their names, identity, or community often face the harshest consequences. Recently, many emotional users have been commenting things like “Make it 20M followers” or “We will show them.” Such provocative reactions only increase tension and can create long-term harm for the community. Your greatest strength is patience, education, wisdom, and raising your voice peacefully within the framework of law and democracy."

Separately, Tribal Army, a tribal rights collective also weighed in. In a widely circulated tweet, it acknowledged the CJP's social media surge but cautioned tribal youth specifically that the online moment should not be confused with sustained, ground-level political work. " The 'Cockroach Party'"is merely a fleeting social media trend. Trends that lack roots in the lives, rights, and struggles of the masses inevitably fade away within a few days.Join our organization- The Tribal Army" which, for the past 10 years, has been waging a relentless grassroots struggle to protect forests, the environment, tribal society, and constitutional rights. The Tribal Army urged its followers to connect instead with genuine tribal political causes that had roots in communities and years of local organising, not just viral momentum. The underlying message was clear: the internet can amplify a voice overnight, but it cannot substitute for the patient, unglamorous work of building political representation from the ground up.

In the days leading up to Thursday's withholding, Dipke had posted a message that now reads as almost prophetic: "Before speaking about CJP, ask yourself one thing, would you be willing to take the risks that I am taking right now?" The risks, it turned out, were real and arrived faster than even he may have expected. Within five days of founding, he had seen his principal platform silenced in his own country. His response a new account, a defiant motto, a legal challenge suggests he intends to take those risks seriously.