Indian court orders government to unblock Cockroach party's X account

NEW DELHI: An Indian court directed the federal government to unblock the X account of the youth Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Tuesday, more than a month since it went offline after amassing some 200,000 followers within days of being created, its founder and a lawyer involved in the case said.

The government had justified the move in court by citing concerns that posts from the account could cause chaos during a national medical college entrance examination that had to be reconducted after its question papers were leaked.

The CJP, which has been communicating with its X followers via an alternate account, has been holding sit-in protests for the last fortnight demanding the education minister’s resignation over the issue.

The Delhi High Court order came after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said it had no objection to the account being unblocked, the lawyer told Reuters.

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CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, in a post on X, termed the decision a “big win” for the party, the movement, and for “free speech and digital rights”.

The account remained withheld in India on Tuesday evening, “in response to a legal demand”, its page said.

The CJP, which describes itself as representing “the lazy, the unemployed, and the chronically correct”, has almost 22 million followers on its Instagram page.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which has termed the group part of “an anti-India gang”, has little over 9 million followers.