A parody political party, Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) garnered millions of followers within 24 hours on Meta-owned social media platform Instagram to overtake the world’s largest political party – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
CJP had less than a million followers on Tuesday, which quickly grew to more than three million followers on Wednesday morning and 10.8 million followers on Thursday. This is more than the 8.7 million people who follow BJP on the platform.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am today. We are just hours away from being overtaken by the world’s biggest party on Instagram,” CJP founder Abhijit Deepke said in a post on Wednesday evening.
Saluting the youth of India for “bringing the BJP to its knees in just four days”, he said, “You are going to create history.”
“Think about what else you can do,” he said.
What is cockroach movement?
It all started on May 15 when the Chief Justice of India, speaking at a case hearing about fake degrees, criticized India’s youth – comparing some of them to “parasites” and “cockroaches”.
He had said, “There are youth like cockroaches who do not get any employment… Some of them become media, some become social media, some become RTI activists and they start attacking everyone.”
In the same day Dubke asked, “What would happen if all the cockroaches came together?”
The parody website surfaced with a five-point manifesto that promised to curb corruption, intra-party defections and increase women’s representation in the Indian Parliament. Eligibility criteria to join the parody party include laziness, unemployment and online presence.
CJP is currently headquartered “wherever WiFi works”.
DW contacted BJP spokesperson Shazia Ilmi, who has not yet responded to our questions. We will update you whenever she does so.