From Punjab to West Bengal, leaders of major Opposition parties such as the Samajwadi Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have voiced support for the Cockroach Janta Party over the past week. The satirical political campaign has gone viral, amassing more than two crore followers on Instagram so far.But the largest Opposition party has yet to jump on the bandwagon. Though the Congress has for years been raising the same issues that the cockroach campaign is focused on – judicial independence, media freedom and election integrity – it has chosen to keep its distance from the initiative.Scroll spoke to representatives from various parties which constitute the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance to understand how they view the campaign. Most of them said that the significant support for the Cockroach Janta Party on social media signalled growing discontent against the Modi government, especially among young Indians.However, Sandeep Dikshit, a former MP who liaisons with civil society on behalf of the Congress party, remained sceptical of the initiative. He questioned the ideological moorings of those supporting the campaign and aired his doubts about their commitment to political activism. The youth wing of the Congress has even claimed that its workers are the “real cockroaches” because they protest on the ground and not just on social media.This divergence between the largest Opposition party and its allies has once again brought the INDIA bloc’s internal divisions to the fore.For ‘the lazy and unemployed'The Cockroach Janta Party began as a tongue-in-cheek response to a comment made in the Supreme Court by Chief Justice Surya Kant. Its founder, Abhijeet Dipke, was among those who took exception to the chief justice’s remarks likening unemployed youngsters to the insect.The chief justice later clarified that he was only censuring seemingly ill-motivated lawyers and had nothing against the youth.Dipke floated social media accounts under the name of Cockroach Janta Party and started a website to reach out to “the lazy and unemployed” in India with his five-point manifesto. The campaign began to make headlines because of the swift rate at which it acquired followers online. Opposition politicians such as Mahua Moitra were quick to endorse it.Though the Cockroach Janta Party’s X account was restricted in India, on Instagram its follower count eventually exceeded that of the Bharatiya Janata Party. It also came up with an internet petition demanding that Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s education minister, be sacked because of the repeated instances of paper leaks under his watch. The petition has received nearly six lakh signatures thus far.