Ajinkya Shinde will lead the planned Jantar Mantar protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar following the detention of CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and other members.
Shinde is CJP’s national organisation in-charge and helped organise the group’s Mumbai agitation and its ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign.
CJP condemned the detentions at Delhi airport as “authoritarian” and a “violation of freedom of movement”.
Cockroach Janta Party founder and convener Abhijeet Dipke said the pressure group's key member Ajinkya Shinde would lead the planned Jantar Mantar protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar after he was detained and allegedly taken to an “undisclosed location”. Videos posted by the outfit showed police entering the aircraft before passengers began deboarding.
A senior Delhi police officer confirmed the detentions and said teams from the southwest district police had been deployed at Indira Gandhi International Airport. CJP strongly condemned the detentions as “authoritarian” and called them a “violation of freedom of movement.”
CJP also shared a pre-recorded video of Dipke that he said he recorded the previous night “in anticipation of a potential arrest”. In the clip, Dipke said Shinde would lead the protest if Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Rana were detained. “If you're watching this video, that means Ashutosh, Saurav, and I have been arrested. After us, this movement will be led by Ajinkya. Please follow Ajinkya Shinde, he will be carrying forward Cockroach Janta Party after Ashutosh, Saurav, and me,” Dipke said in the video. Shinde has 23.2k followers on Instagram.
Ajinkya Shinde
Shinde is CJP’s national organisation in-charge. He organised the group’s Mumbai agitation earlier this month and has become a key face of its Mumbai wing.
He was also among those named in a case over illegal gathering and sloganeering in Dadar on Gandhi Jayanti. The case listed Abhijeet Dipke, Pranav Ahire, Ashutosh Ranka, Ajinkya Shinde, Saurabh Das, Afreen Nawaz, Saumya Korde, Ankit Bharadwaj, Vijay Malangi and Yogesh Ingle, along with more than 400 supporters.
Shinde was also among the CJP leaders who spearheaded the pressure group’s ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign, which aims to improve the condition of government schools across India.
Airport Detentions
Dipke, Das and Ranka were detained seconds after they landed in Delhi on Saturday, while videos posted by CJP showed police entering the aircraft before passengers began deboarding.
A senior Delhi police officer said teams from the southwest district police had been deployed at Indira Gandhi International Airport. CJP’s legal affairs head Ratna Singh was also detained earlier on Saturday.
