The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has formally announced its National Working Committee on 6th August 2026, after a two-day core team strategy meeting at founder Abhijeet Dipke’s residence in Maharashtra. The formation of the CJP National Working Committee marks the next step toward structured national expansion. It has also announced a ‘Kya Bolti Public’ outreach campaign. The CJP’s expansion as a youth-led public pressure group, however, is being spearheaded by former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) functionaries.
Beginning as an online satirical response to Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant’s courtroom “cockroaches and parasites” remark in mid-May 2026, the CJP gained serious public attention during its protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. The CJI had said that young people who cannot find employment in their professions, “like cockroaches,” turn to RTI activism, social media, and journalism, becoming “parasites of society” who attack the system.
The CJP protest catapulted into a wider movement after climate activist Sonam Wangchuk launched a 26-day hunger strike to demand the resignation of former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak and to push for broader educational reforms.
OpIndia reported earlier that the CJP picked up a genuine issue concerning students and rallied their support through “Laughtivism” only to further the anti-BJP/Modi agenda of the political Opposition. Although the CJP has said it has plans for state coordination committees, Lok Sabha, and city-level units over the next six months, the CJP’s expansion as a pressure group itself is quite revealing of how it is but an anti-BJP political party in the making.
Before elaborating on the CJP’s full-fledged pivot towards anti-BJP politics, it is important to know who all are on the CJP’s National Working Committee.
The announced CJP NWC roster includes:
- Founder & National Convener: Abhijeet Dipke (30)
- Co-Conveners: Ashutosh Ranka (30) and Saurav Das (27)
- National Organisation In-Charge: Ajinkya Shinde (35)
- Organisation Co-in-Charge: Deepak Baliyan (26)
- National Secretary: Aafreen Nawaz (34)
- Media Lead: Vijay Reddy Mallangi (30)
- Legal Affairs Lead: Ratna Singh (31)
- Research and Policy Lead: Vaishnavi Gaur (29)
- Technology Lead: Rohan Deshpande (31)
- Finance Lead: Yogesh Ingale (33)
The CJP has also appointed zonal leads. These include: Deepak Baliyan (North), Vijay Reddy Mallangi (South), Ankit Bharadwaj (East & Northeast), Yogesh Ingale (West).
The Cockroach Janta Party formally announces the names of it’s National Working Committee! pic.twitter.com/zMrXUNxW9U
— Cockroach Janta Party – CJP (@Cockroachisback) August 6, 2026
Most CJP National working Committee office bearers are former AAP functionaries: The formalisation of AAP’s B-Team
Ever since the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) came into existence, OpIndia has been highlighting how the CJP is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in a new Gen-Z appealing packaging. Appointed as the National Convenor of the CJP, its founder, Abhijeet Dipke, previously served as AAP social media coordinator between 2020 and 2023. In 2023, Dipke left for the US to do an MS in Public Relations from Boston University.
Several reports during the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections identified him as a member of AAP’s social media and digital campaign machinery. Reports described him as a key figure involved in creating memes, short videos and digital content designed to promote Arvind Kejriwal and counter political opponents.
Dipke is also a part of AAP’s wider election war-room operations and social media coordination efforts. He was quoted in media interviews discussing campaign strategies aimed at millennials and first-time voters and worked with AAP’s IT and media teams during election campaigns.
Abhijeet Dipke is also known to have been a disciple of AAP leader and former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia. Dipke has been a part of AAP’s ‘war room’ and has consistently held an anti-BJP political line. It was seen how the Aam Aadmi Party aggressively supported the CJP protests, and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia visited Jantar Mantar to show solidarity with the ‘cockroaches’.
Meanwhile, CJP Co-Convenor Ashutosh Ranka is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and the London School of Economics, with prior experience as a management consultant at McKinsey in London. After returning to India last year, he has been engaged in civic campaigns in Jaipur focusing on environmental issues, education reforms, and youth concerns. Ranka gained wider attention during the NEET controversy due to his association with the CJP.
Ashutosh Ranka is no stranger to politics. In fact, his most notable political credential is his earlier role as a national spokesperson for the Aam Aadmi Party, where he aggressively defended Arvind Kejriwal and the party against allegations in the liquor policy scam, often dismissing them as ‘politically motivated’. Ranka was actively associated with AAP’s 2025 Delhi assembly campaign.
Ranka has previously written op-eds for leftist propaganda outlets like ThePrint and Newslaundry.
Appointed by the CJP as National Organisation In-Charge, Ajinkya Shinde is also an AAP functionary. He had resigned from his job to become a full-time AAP member. Shinde is a former AAP Maharashtra Youth Wing State President and state committee member.
Announced around May 2025, Ajinkya Shinde also served as AAP Goa Sah Prabhari before transitioning into the CJP’s organisational role.
In fact, reports are suggesting that Shinde continues to serve as the Convenor of AAP’s Maharashtra Youth Wing
The CJP has given the charge of Media Lead and South Zone to Vijay Reddy Mallangi, who, unsurprisingly, happens to be an active AAP Telangana member.
Social media is replete with his videos and photos showing involvement in supporting AAP fundraising, leadership, and electoral campaigns last year.
The CJP’s Finance Lead Yogesh Ingale is also reported to be a functionary of the Aam Aadmi Party in Maharashtra’s Pune.
Moreover, Ankit Bhardwaj, the CJP’s East and North Zone Lead, has also worked as a volunteer for the Aam Aadmi Party.
CJP is a party of Aam Aadmi Party’s servants.
Today, Abhijeet Dipke announced CJP’s core team. Everyone already knows that Ranka, Saurav, and Dipke have had links with the Aam Aadmi Party.
But today, they appointed Ajinkya Shinde as CJP’s organisation in-charge. He is still the… pic.twitter.com/4fgSchejSH
— Amit Kumar Sindhi (@AMIT_GUJJU) August 6, 2026
Clearly, the CJP indirectly formalised itself as probably the ‘youth wing’ of the Aam Aadmi Party by inducting maximum present or former AAP functionaries into its National Working Committee.
Share this video max and expose and don't let this 2nd team of AAP divide our India.
I request @BJP4India to don't let them use our youth for their political gain @narendramodi
https://t.co/SrqEjTxdm8 pic.twitter.com/nxIeatd2cE
— कट्टर INDIA समर्थक
(@KKRWeRule) August 6, 2026
While CJP has claimed that past political associations of its members are irrelevant and that the group is ‘independent’ and ‘standalone’, picking persons with a recorded past with a particular political party and ideological bias points to the fact that the CJP is essentially an extension, rather a reinvention, of the Aam Aadmi Party.
OpIndia analysed earlier how, beyond the comedic surface, the CJP systematically advances opposition stances, targeting the judiciary, Election Commission, corporate interests, media, and political defectors, thus disguising partisan messaging as satire. It is evident that the CJP is nothing but an anti-BJP experiment with a ‘cool’ and ‘Gen-Z-appealing’ outlook.
The ‘cockroaches’ had made their political ideology and anti-Modi stance abundantly clear in May itself when they engaged in a self-imposed Instagram followers count competition with the BJP. During the protest, the CJP welcomed the support of known anti-BJP politicians like Mahua Moitra, Chandrashekhar Azad, and Kirti Azad, to Islamo-leftists like Yogendra Yadav, who expressed joy over CJP cockroaches successfully “occupying” Jantar Mantar and the streets leading to the Parliament. Kunal Kamra, who delivered derogatory remarks against Maa Sita from CJP’s protest stage; Delhi University professor Nandita Narayan sang “Bas naam rahega Allah ka” and glorified Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Islamic supremacist poem “Hum Dekhenge”; AISA, SFI, and other leftist student groups, which raised anti-national slogans of “Azadi-Azadi” and “Brahmanwad se azadi”.
The CJP also received support from notorious Hinduphobes and anti-BJP ‘activists’ like Prakash Raj, Swara Bhasker, Shabana Azmi, Arundhati Roy, and Nivedita Menon.
In fact, during the violent CJP protest on 20th July, Samajwadi Party, Azad Samaj Party, and workers of other anti-BJP parties actively participated in the so-called ‘student protests’. The protest was also joined by MACOCA-accused AAP-linked gangster Haji Afzal.
The CJP’s top leadership boasts that people from across political ideologies supported the CJP during the July protests. In this view, the CJP inducting former AAP functionaries as its top office bearers lends credence to what was already speculated: the CJP is a B-Team of the Aam Aadmi Party.