CJP warns of nationwide agitation if Education Minister Pradhan is not removed within seven days

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which organized a protest led by its founder Abhijeet Dipek at Jantar Mantar here on Saturday (June 6, 2026) demanding the ouster of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, warned that the agitation would spread across the country if he was not sacked or voluntarily resigned.

Speaking at a press conference, CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das said the protest attracted participants from several states and marked the beginning of a broader youth movement focused on education and governance issues.

In an apparent show of strength, the CJP, which was born as an online campaign in May and has amassed over 22 million followers on Instagram, urged young people to take part in a protest in the state capital over the issue of alleged irregularities in exams and recruitment tests.

“We are giving the government seven days. Either Dharmendra Pradhan should respectfully resign or Prime Minister Narendra Modi should remove him. If his resignation does not come within seven days, this movement will spread across the country,” Ranka said.

He said organizers were receiving messages from supporters in various states expressing readiness to hold peaceful demonstrations, and claimed the group would wait a week before announcing the next course of action.

Mr Ranka described the turnout on Saturday (June 6, 2026) as a significant moment and said the protest showed that young people were willing to mobilize around issues that affected them.

“June 6, 2026 will go down in history because today the politics of this country has completely changed,” he said, adding that many young people had gathered for the peaceful demonstration, which often discouraged them from taking to the streets.

Organizers repeatedly projected the protest as a youth-led campaign and sought to frame it as a response to concerns about the education system.

“The time has come to reset our education system and we have started that reset today,” Mr. Ranka said, adding that the demand for Pradhan’s resignation was the movement’s immediate goal.

According to him, the dismissal of the Minister of Education was necessary if meaningful reforms were to take place.

“Until this education minister is there, we will not be able to improve the education system of this country,” he said.

While Mr Ranka maintained that the resignation demand remained a top priority, he indicated that the campaign would continue beyond the issue.

“This is just the beginning. There are so many youth issues in this country,” he said, adding that education concerns have not been given enough attention.

Asked whether the mobilization should be seen as a protest, a movement or a political platform, Ranka described it as a “youth platform”, “youth collective” and “youth movement”, leaving open how it might evolve in the future.

The organizers also rejected suggestions that the mobilization was linked to any established political formation and described themselves as “pro-youth, pro-education, pro-constitution and pro-India”.

Mr. Ranka said the turnout exceeded expectations and emphasized that the gathering was peaceful despite the crowds.

“It was such a huge crowd and yet it remained a very, very peaceful protest. Maybe one of the most peaceful protests the country has seen in a while,” he said.

“Gen Z and the youth of this country have Gandhi and Ambedkar in their blood,” he added, thanking the participants who had traveled from different parts of the country to attend the event.

Saurav Das said people from several states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and those in the Northeast, joined the protest.

He also referred to online support for the campaign, claiming hundreds of thousands of people had signed petitions calling for the minister’s resignation.

Asked if they would send any representation to Mr. Pradhan or ask for a meeting, Mr. Ranka said, “Why doesn’t he just resign.”

Mr. Das said several other student groups had written to the minister over the matter but had received no response.

“The youth want to speak, but when the government doesn’t speak, that’s when they hit the road,” Mr. Das said.

He also thanked the Delhi Police for facilitating the demonstration and said maintaining peace was a priority for the organizers.

“We are very happy that the Delhi Police’s priority was a peaceful demonstration,” he said.

The protest was called by Mr Dipke, who started the online satirical account of the Cockroach Janta Party, also called ‘CJP’, amid demands for accountability for recent developments in the education sector.

Earlier in the day, Mr Dipke had urged Mr Pradhan to step down by 5pm, with organizers later announcing a seven-day deadline for ministerial or government action.

Published – June 6, 2026 10:33 PM IST