Abhijeet Dipke built his entire political identity on exam fraud. The Cockroach Janta Party, which he founded in May after the Chief Justice compared unemployed youth to “cockroaches,” rose to national attention through the Jantar Mantar protests over the NEET-UG paper leak – Sonam Wangchuk helped them gather eyeballs, Dipke went on hunger strike for just over a day, and the protests ended after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned. This was the movement’s founding cause and its biggest win.
So, when a reporter asked him a simple follow-up – will the CJP do something about the massive student protest now underway in Jharkhand, where thousands are alleging the exact same kind of exam fraud he built his name fighting, his answer should have been easy. Instead: “We don’t want to do anything in hurry or about every issue, we don’t have solution of everything.”
Reporter: Will CJP do something about massive numbers of student protesting in Jharkhand on paper leak?
Abhijeet dipke: We don’t want to do anything in hurry or about every issue, we don’t have solution of everything!
What a hypocrite Cockroach!! pic.twitter.com/4CWUJFIqB1
— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) August 2, 2026
That line doesn’t survive contact with what the CJP actually is. This isn’t a party that dabbles in causes at random. It exists because of exam fraud and the humiliation of unemployed youth aspirants – that’s the founding grievance, the whole reason “cockroach” became a badge of honour. Jharkhand is not “every issue” landing on Dipke’s desk to be triaged. It is his one issue, playing out again, to the same students, over the same kind of paper leak and the same institutional stonewalling he built an entire movement around in Delhi. Calling that something he doesn’t have a “solution” for isn’t restraint. It’s a founder of a single-issue movement declining to show up for his own issue the moment the cameras moved elsewhere.
In Ranchi, students have been camped out at Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium for over a week, on an indefinite hunger strike, demanding a CBI and ED probe into paper leaks and OMR tampering in the 14th JPSC exam. They’ve rejected the state’s CID inquiry as a whitewash. They’re marching on the Vidhan Sabha on August 6. Student leader Devendra Nath Mahato is fasting to force Hemant Soren to the table. This is not a fringe protest – it’s spreading district by district, and the students have deliberately kept it apolitical, carrying only the Tricolour and the Constitution.
He did phone the Ranchi students and put out a statement backing their demands, and he’s promised to visit once he recovers from typhoid. Fair enough as far as it goes, except “recovering” hasn’t stopped him from meeting followers at home in Maharashtra, posting regularly, or taking a public jab at one of the Prime Minister’s videos. He has the bandwidth. He’s chosen where to spend it, and it isn’t Ranchi.
That’s Dipke’s problem to own. But it becomes everyone else’s story the moment you remember who built him up in July.
When Dipke was on hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, Bollywood turned up like it was a premiere. Shabana Azmi came in person and recited Faiz. Swara Bhasker sat beside him and Sonam Wangchuk, calling the movement “unapologetic and fearless.” Prakash Raj made the trip to Delhi. Jyotika posted about raising fearless children. Zeenat Aman, Abhay Deol, and Naseeruddin Shah tracked his health updates on social media like a scoreboard. Sonu Sood, Riteish Deshmukh, and Soha Ali Khan added their own statements of solidarity.
In Thiruvananthapuram, it’s worse in a quieter way. Kerala PSC rank holders who cleared the exam for lower primary teaching posts, over 15 months ago, are still waiting for appointment letters. Some have taken to eating soil and kneeling on rock salt outside the secretariat to make the government notice them. No hunger strike photo-op required here; just a slow bureaucratic strangulation of people who did everything right and still can’t get hired.
Same demand for accountability. Same students. Same fight against examination fraud and government apathy that Bollywood was so moved by six weeks ago. Not one statement. Not one tweet. Not one visit.
None of the celebrities have said a word since. Not about Ranchi. Not about Thiruvananthapuram.
These are the same students. The same fight against exam fraud and institutional apathy that had Bollywood lining up to be photographed in July has resurfaced twice over in August, and the silence from every one of those names has been total.
So, the man they rallied around is now telling reporters he doesn’t have a solution for the very crisis he was built to fight, and the celebrities who made him a cause are nowhere to be found either. One dodge enabled the other. If Shabana Azmi, Swara Bhasker, Prakash Raj, Jyotika, Zeenat Aman, Abhay Deol, Naseeruddin Shah, Sonu Sood, Riteish Deshmukh, and Soha Ali Khan were moved by students being cheated by the examination system in Delhi, that cause didn’t disappear when the cameras did. Their silence now says the solidarity was never really about the students. It was about the stage.
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