NEW DELHI: New Delhi municipal workers were busy painting over anti-government graffiti on Sunday after the youth-led “cockroach” movement had left a landmark protest site, satisfied with the government acceding to their demands.
The social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) had drawn thousands of demonstrators, mainly students, to the capital’s Jantar Mantar site, forming one of India’s largest anti-government protests in recent years.
Weeks of protests over exam irregularities and other issues affecting young Indians culminated on Saturday with the resignation of the education minister and the government accepting other key demands.
On Sunday, dozens of municipal workers were washing the pavements along the road leading to the site, where activists had camped for weeks and where just hours earlier the crowd sang protest songs, chanted slogans and painted acerbic graffiti. “We have been here since midnight when the protestors left,” a municipal worker who declined to be identified told AFP.
“The walls have been painted, but may require another coat of paint as some lines (from the slogans) are still visible,” he said.
The movement sparked by a call for education reforms evolved to include concerns over unemployment, opportunities for young people and what critics brand as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s increasingly authoritarian style of governance.
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