CJP seeks wider footprint across Northeast states

The Cockroach Janata Party plans to expand its presence across Northeast states, spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said. The party will focus on issues concerning students, youth, indigenous rights and man-made floods, a day after Assam Police detained Ranka and others

Guwahati: CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka on Monday said the outfit was seeking to expand its base across the Northeastern states and had been receiving a positive response.

He said the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) would focus on issues concerning students and youth in the region and provide them with a platform to raise their concerns.

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“The CJP will reach out to all Northeast states, and the response has been good so far. The Northeast is important for us,” Ranka said, a day after Assam Police detained him and more than 40 other CJP members for around 10 hours ahead of a volunteers’ meet-up here.

Ranka said people in the Northeast were looking for a platform that would take up issues concerning students and youth, and the CJP would offer that alternative.

On Sunday’s police action, the CJP co-founder reiterated that it was “completely illegal”, claiming that they were picked up from private property.

The CJP leaders and volunteers were picked up from Chowdhury Tila, opposite the state secretariat at Dispur, which is the residence of Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) leader Kunki Chowdhury.

They were released late on Sunday evening.

“When we asked police on what basis we were being detained, they said, ‘Sir, we have orders from the top’. They could give us no reason,” Ranka claimed.

“All was controlled from the top. The government was trying to bully us, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was trying to frighten us…but the more you try to douse, the more the revolution will spread,” the CJP leader said.

He asserted that the outfit would continue to highlight problems faced by students and youth in the state, as well as issues such as the rights of indigenous people in Kaziranga and devastation caused by man-made floods.

On CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke’s plan to visit Assam following Ranka’s detention, he said, “Abhijeet’s plan was based on my arrest. But since we have been released, he is not coming. He is preparing for the October 2 protest against CEC Gyanesh Kumar.”