‘Arrest me anywhere’: CJP’s Dipke vows to carry Tricolour across India

• CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke vows to carry the Tricolour across India despite arrests.

• At a Kochi protest, he accuses the Modi government and BJP of seeking control over personal freedoms and voting rights.

• He says the campaign against electoral roll revision will continue until an independent and impartial electoral system is secured.

Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Saturday vowed to continue carrying the national flag across the country despite arrests, while accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP of attempting to restrict personal freedoms and influence electoral choices.

Speaking at a protest meeting under the party’s ‘Jantar Mantar at Kochi’ campaign, Dipke said the agitation would continue until the country had an independent and impartial electoral system.

The campaign targets the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Dipke referred to his arrest in Delhi alongside CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, saying they had been detained for entering Jantar Mantar with the national flag.

“I was sent behind bars for raising this Tricolour,” he said, adding that his colleagues had faced the same treatment. He compared their arrests with restrictions imposed during British rule.

Declaring that detention would not deter him, Dipke challenged the government to arrest him wherever he travelled.

“Arrest me from every part of the country, but I will come back again and raise this Tricolour,” he said.

Dipke accused the government of progressively extending its influence over citizens’ private lives, from dietary choices and relationships to the exercise of voting rights.

“They first wanted to control what you eat, then whom you can marry and love, and now they have come to a point where they want to control whom you vote for,” he said.

He claimed the SIR exercise was being used to influence electoral outcomes and linked opposition to the revision process with the broader defence of democratic freedoms.

Dipke also invoked B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, describing their ideas as foundational to India.

Calling Gandhi the country’s soul, Ambedkar its backbone and Nehru its mind, he argued that Modi could not surpass their stature through a prolonged hold on power.

“Even if you remain in power for 120 years, you will never become bigger than Ambedkar, Gandhi and Nehru,” he said.

With PTI inputs