Ajinkya Shinde to Lead Jantar Mantar Protest After CJP Leaders Detained

Ajinkya Shinde will head the Jantar Mantar protest after co‑conveners of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) were detained by Delhi police. Founder Abhijeet Dipke said the detention happened seconds after the leaders landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport on Saturday. In a pre‑recorded video, Dipke warned that if he, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were arrested, Shinde would take over the movement. The video also named Ratna Singh, CJP’s legal affairs head, as another detainee. Shinde is the national organisation in‑charge of CJP and organized the group’s Mumbai agitation earlier this month. He is a prominent face of CJP’s Mumbai leg and was among the VJP leaders arrested during a Gandhi Jayanti rally in Dadar, where over 400 supporters were also held. Shinde has 23.2k followers on Instagram and has promoted the party’s ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign for better government schools. CJP condemned the arrests as authoritarian and a violation of freedom of movement. The Delhi police confirmed that southwest district teams carried out the detentions at the airport. ## Context The protest will take place at Jantar Mantar, a historic public space in New Delhi often used for political rallies. The Cockroach Janta Party is a pressure group that organizes street‑level actions and campaigns on issues such as school conditions and electoral reforms.