Top 3 faces behind Cockroach Janta Party movement
The trio comprises CJP founder Abhijit Dipke and the outfit's spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka.
Two foreign master's degree holders and an investigative journalist have emerged as the leading faces of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which gained prominence following a 36-day standoff with the Indian government.
The protest ended with the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged exam paper leak issue.
The trio comprises CJP founder Abhijit Dipke and the outfit's spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, who also served as its negotiators with the Modi government over the group's demands.
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Abhijit Dipke, 30, founder of the CJP, was born in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad) in Maharashtra. He moved to Pune to study engineering but switched to journalism, earning a journalism degree before completing a master's in public relations at Boston University.
His father, Bhagwanrao Dipke, is a retired Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation deputy engineer, while his mother, Anita, is a homemaker. His elder sister, Varsha, lives in the United States.
According to his family, Dipke became involved in public causes during Anna Hazare's 2011 anti-corruption movement, taking part in protests wearing the iconic "Main Anna Hazare" cap.
He later joined the Aam Aadmi Party's social media team, focusing on youth engagement and Instagram, and eventually became its national social media coordinator.
He worked on the party's 2020 Delhi and 2022 Punjab assembly election campaigns before moving to the United States in 2023. After completing his master's degree, he returned to India in June this year.
Dipke has publicly identified himself as a Dalit, once writing on social media, "I am a Dalit myself."
Throughout the CJP protest, he prominently displayed symbols associated with B R Ambedkar. On arriving in Delhi on 6 June, he held up a collection of Ambedkar's speeches and writings. After Pradhan's resignation on 25 July, he raised Ambedkar's portrait before chanting "Bharat Mata ki Jai" and repeatedly shouting "Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Bhim".
Hours after the resignation, Dipke changed his X profile picture from one featuring activist Sonam Wangchuk to an image of the Constitution of India.
According to his LinkedIn profile, CJP spokesperson Saurav Das is an investigative journalist with a degree in journalism and mass communication. He began his career in 2020 and is currently writing a book on the Indian judiciary's role in the country's slide towards electoral autocracy.
Another spokesperson, Ashutosh Ranka, is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and the London School of Economics, and previously worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company in London.
