Dipke says CJP will regroup once Das and Ranka are out, vows a long fight

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), said on Sunday the party would pause to rethink its campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar once its two jailed co-convenors, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, are freed, but would not give it up.

“Once Saurav and Ashu come, we will gather, restrategize, and determine how to move forward,” Dipke said in Delhi. “We will neither be intimidated nor back down. This is a long battle, and we are fully prepared for it.”

He said he hoped the two would be released later on Sunday, and that he was on his way to meet advocate Vrinda Grover about their case. He accused Delhi Police of “deliberately using delaying tactics” to keep them behind bars.

Why the two are in jail

Das and Ranka climbed the locked gate of Jantar Mantar on Tuesday, a day after police struck it off the list of permitted protest sites, and were said to have waved the Tricolour inside with about a dozen others. A Special Executive Magistrate’s court sent them to five days of judicial custody the next day.

Dipke himself was held on Friday on his way to a “Lehra Do Tiranga” march at Central Park in Connaught Place, when prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS were in force in central Delhi. He was booked under Sections 126 and 170 of the BNSS in a fresh preventive proceeding and given conditional bail on Saturday at Mandir Marg police station, on a bond to keep the peace for a year.

Ratna Singh, who heads the CJP’s legal affairs, said his detention had been unlawful. “He merely urged people to unfurl the Tiranga - how can that by itself be a crime?” she said. “Delhi Police cannot do unlawful acts under the garb of preventive detention.”

Students take up the call

The Congress’s student wing, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), asked supporters to gather outside the Le Meridien hotel at 1 pm on Sunday and march to Jantar Mantar to demand the CEC’s resignation. “The BJP government is so scared of Gen Z that it has de-notified Jantar Mantar as a protest site,” the NSUI said.

The CJP’s protests are part of a wider opposition campaign against the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The DMK, the Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have backed the group. DMK MP Kanimozhi said on Saturday her party had stood by the CJP when its leaders were arrested, and that she had joined a protest in Chennai.

Delhi Police have separately given the Congress permission to hold a rally at Ramlila Maidan on 1 November.