A purported statement by Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke is circulating on social media. In the viral post, Dipke is quoted as saying, “We are demanding responsibility, not resignation from the chief minister (of Jharkhand), so that problems don’t arise regarding papers in the future.”

The apparent statement was shared by a verified Instagram handle named ‘indians’ on August 14. The post received has over 74,600 reactions till date. The page has around 9 million followers. (Archive)

The caption of the post reads:

“… Dipke said he does not want Soren to resign, but wants accountability to ensure such incidents do not happen again. His stand has sparked questions among citizens over why accountability is being sought instead of resignation in this case, while Dharmendra Pradhan faced demands to resign.”

After Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned following CJP’s Delhi protests, a similar protest erupted in Ranchi over alleged paper leaks and irregularities in Jharkhand’s government recruitment exams. Protesters, including students and activists, demanded chief minister Hemant Soren’s resignation.

It was against this backdrop that the quote attributed to CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke went viral. The viral posts reinforce the key BJP charge that CJP was comparatively restrained when allegations of exam irregularities emerged in Opposition-ruled states, particularly Jharkhand. BJP leaders have used this argument to accuse the group of selective outrage. In comments to the above Instagram post, many users replied saying Dipke’s stance showed his ‘hypocrisy’ or ‘double standard’.

The same quotation was also shared by Facebook pages named The Youth – India and Saale Dost Ko Thanks Bolta hai. The follower counts of the two pages are 141,000 and 4.9 million, respectively.

Fact Check

To begin with, we noted that none of the social media pages cited any source for the said quotation.

To find more on the purported statement by Dipke, we went through his X timeline, since the CJP founder regularly posts about his media interactions and public statements on his X account. We could not find any post corroborating the viral claim.

We, however, found a post from August 2 where Dipke is speaking to the protesting students in Jharkhand on a video call. “The CJP stands with all the students in Jharkhand and support their demands,” he wrote. He makes the same point in the video as well.

Next, we performed a keyword search on Google, looking for news reports on the said statement. We used the keyword combination: “Abhijeet Dipke Jharkhand Hemant Soren resignation”.

We could not find a single report which mentioned that Dipke had said they were only seeking accountability and responsibility, and not the Jharkhand chief minister’s resignation. Instead, we found several reports on the CJP and its founder supporting the Jharkhand students’ stir. For instance, this report in The Hindu states that Abhijeet Dipke “was in touch with the protesters and supported their demands, and they will go to Ranchi to express solidarity.” Similar reports were carried by outlets like  The Print and The Times of India.

None of the articles mentioned anything similar to what the purported quote claims.

We also found an ANI post containing Dipke’s detailed response to the Jharkhand situation. He says, “… We offer our full support. Our delegation has visited the area, and our people are distributing food there. We stand firmly with them and support all their demands… I, too, intend to go… Although, I am currently dealing with some health issues…”

In another interview with PTI, Dipke said CJP would support demands for educational reforms, irrespective of which state was in question and which party was in power.

Alt News then reached out to Abhijeet Dipke and asked him whether he had made the statement shown in the viral posts. Dipke replied: “Never said this. These people (the social media pages) are running anything they want.”

To sum up, the viral post quoting Abhijeet Dipke as saying that they were seeking accountability but not Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren’s resignation is baseless. There is no credible evidence of the CJP founder having made such a statement. Dipke himself refuted the claim.

False
Claim:
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said they were not seeking the resignation of Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren; they were only seeking accountability and responsibility

The content is factually incorrect or fabricated.

Read our methodology