Just months after the political-satirical outfit Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) emerged from a nationwide protest movement and took the internet by storm, prompting the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a rival group calling itself "Cockroach Janta Party-Democratic" has now been launched by activist Manish Brahmbhatt, marking a sharp and public split within the movement's ranks.

Brahmbhatt, an activist from Ahmedabad who has been on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, launched a scathing attack on Thursday against CJP's core committee, alleging that the original movement had effectively been reduced to "Team Kejriwal," a reference to Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal.

His grievances center specifically on the formation of CJP's 12-member National Core Team, which he claims was handpicked arbitrarily and without any meaningful consultation with the movement's ground-level workers. "The movement belonged to the nation. It succeeded because people poured their blood and sweat into it. But after it succeeded, it was sold out and politicized. It has now become 'Team Kejriwal,'" Brahmbhatt said, addressing a small gathering of supporters.

Brahmbhatt went further, alleging that CJP's leadership, including founder Abhijeet Dipke, deliberately avoided joining a student movement in Jharkhand despite traveling extensively elsewhere, a decision he claimed stemmed from instructions from Kejriwal, whom he accused of steering the group's strategy to strike political deals with opposition parties, or with ruling parties in states where the BJP is not in power.

The allegation directly links CJP's recent activities to broader questions about the political ambitions of the Delhi chief minister and the movement's original leadership. Rejecting what he described as an opaque and top-down organizational structure, Brahmbhatt announced the formation of the new "Cockroach Janta Party-Democratic," urging volunteers to build what he called a genuinely democratic and transparent national team rather than allowing it to become "Kejriwal's team."

Announcing the new platform, Brahmbhatt said it would offer multiple channels for people to join, including social media accounts, a dedicated WhatsApp number and a missed-call facility, with the stated goal of enabling important decisions to be made through a democratic process involving the group's own members rather than a small, centrally appointed leadership.

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Brahmbhatt further alleged irregularities in how the original CJP team was formed, claiming that during a volunteers' meeting held in Delhi, participants had their mobile phones confiscated, reportedly to prevent the proceedings from being recorded. He said his new platform would instead focus on raising questions about corruption and what he termed a broader "gutter system" in Indian governance, regardless of which political party or government was in power, distinguishing his approach from what he alleged was CJP's singular focus on opposing one particular party.

The public falling-out marks a significant fracture within a movement that had, only months earlier, generated substantial national attention and was widely credited with pressuring a sitting Union minister into resignation. Whether the newly launched Cockroach Janta Party-Democratic will succeed in drawing support away from the original outfit remains to be seen, though the dispute underscores the broader tensions that can emerge when grassroots protest movements evolve into more structured political organizations, particularly around questions of leadership, transparency and political alignment.

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