NEW DELHI: Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini on Monday dismissed the newly founded satirical outfit, the Cockroach Janata Party as a “short-lived” movement that has no traction among the youth and no groundswell of support among the masses.
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He also asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party, with its record of delivering on promises, is now the party of choice for people in poll-bound Punjab, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the face of the party. “He will be the face of the party and once the election is won, there will be a strong chief minister, just as it happened in West Bengal, where Suvendu Adhikari was later named as CM,” he said.
On the growing online popularity of the CJP and whether it could emerge as a challenger to the established political parties, he said, “I have been meeting people from across age groups…there is no resentment among the youth. Besides, what is the life span of a cockroach…”
The CJP was set up online in May by political consultant Abhijit Dipke in response to the oral observations made by Chief Justice of India (CJI), Surya Kant, who compared unemployed youth turning to social media activism to “cockroaches” and “parasites”.
At an interaction with a group of women journalists organised by the Women Journalist Welfare Trust, Saini said the buzz around CJP is similar to the opposition’s narrative about the so-called attack on the Constitution.
“The opposition’s role is unfortunate…an opposition leader stood with a copy of the Constitution and said there will be a threat to the Constitution if the BJP comes to power for the third time. Have they forgotten what happened in 1975 (when the Emergency was imposed) or in 1984 (when the Sikhs were attacked following the then PM Indira Gandhi’s assassination)…they amended the Constitution for their own benefits,” he said.
Saini, who has been campaigning in Punjab, which goes to the polls next year, said the people in the neighbouring state have been “let down” by both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party and are now looking for an alternative in the BJP.
Fluent in Punjabi, Saini, an OBC leader has been campaigning in the state wearing a saffron turban and his presence on the ground is seen as a sharp political move to coalesce the non-Jat Sikh vote in the state.
The Haryana CM has been drawing a comparison between his state and Punjab, underscoring how he delivered on promises within a year of coming to power. “In Punjab people threw the Congress out and thought the AAP will bring a change. But they were let down by both.”
Saini said while his government has already transferred ₹300 crore in LPG subsidies to women and another Rs5,000 crore as a monthly dole to eligible women, the government of Punjab has yet to fulfil its promises. “There (in Punjab) women were told they will be paid ₹1000 a month, but not a single rupee has been given. With barely months to go for elections, the state government is still working on how to draw up resources for the allocation,” he said.
Asked if the absence of a well-known Jat Sikh face would prove to be a challenge in Punjab, Saini said, “We have many faces in the state…but for the elections, the PM is our biggest face.”
In response to a question from HT on the state’s declining sex ratio, which has recently come down to 898 per 1000, the Haryana CM said people have begun using “advanced technology for sex determination” and the government has doubled down on enforcement of the law that prevents sex determination for carrying out female foeticide.
