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How inexperience, strategic missteps hobbled the CJP's anti-CEC protests

In one lineInexperience, poor strategy, and lack of traditional mobilisation hampered the Cockroach Janta Party's anti-CEC protests in Delhi.Key points• Strategic missteps and detentionsTop CJP leaders announced travel plans in advance and arrived only on the protest day, leading to their detention and leadership vacuum.• Shift from digital to traditionalThe CJP struggled to replicate its social media-driven success from earlier anti-NEET protests, failing to adapt to traditional mobilisation needs.• Legal strategy and alliesSigning peace bonds instead of challenging them in higher courts drew internal criticism, though student allies remained sympathetic.• Government barriers and logisticsHeavy barricading and police deployment at Jantar Mantar required organisational imagination that the inexperienced group lacked.Processed with AI. Reviewed by DH Digital Team.

It has also not been able to build a successful campaign around co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, who were put in jail for their 'tiranga' demonstration at the now-denotified protest site Jantar Mantar, while its founder, Abhijeet Dipke, left Delhi for his home State Maharashtra on Sunday.

With the novelty of its June-July protest gone, what the CJP needed was organisational imagination when the government was on an overdrive to make Jantar Mantar, the iconic protest site, inaccessible to protesters with a heavy barricading and deployment of police and paramilitary personnel.

The CJP quickly found that the mobilisation over social media during its first protest could not be replicated for the anti-CEC protest, which needed traditional mobilisation techniques. Some CJP functionaries in States felt that the decisions taken in Delhi were not communicated downwards.

A number of people disinclined to join a Left- or a Congress-sponsored protest gathered behind the banner of the CJP, which insisted that it remains a pressure group and not aiming to become a political party, but it could not capitalise on such protesters this time.

Though it called for the October 10 protest at Jantar Mantar seeking Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation, it was the Left student and youth organisations that took the lead in bringing protesters on the ground.

A strategic mistake by the top CJP leaders Dipke, Das and Ranka - arriving in Delhi only on the day of protest and announcing their travel plans in advance - led to their detention from a plane on October 10. Their absence in Delhi ahead of the October 10 protest prevented the CJP from converting the goodwill created during the anti-NEET protests.

Also, sending both Das and Ranka to Jantar Mantar for the October 13 protest - following their release from detention on October 11 after signing a peace bond - and their subsequent detention also proved costly for the CJP, leaving Dipke alone to shoulder the leadership troubles.

Its legal strategy was also under question from its own allies, allowing Dipke, Das and Ranka to sign the peace bond and not challenging it in a higher court at the start itself.

However, student and youth organisations working with the CJP are sympathetic to it, saying its inexperience should not be overblown. Influential YouTuber and CJP supporter Dhruv Rathee told a weekly recently that he would ask people to excuse them if they make mistakes as they do not have years of experience in organising protests or fighting elections.

"The CJP banner attracted an organic crowd earlier. It still has the potential. It may make mistakes but that is not the point now. Our focus is on how to take the movement forward," a Left student leader said.