4 min readNew DelhiMay 25, 2026 10:58 PM IST
First published on: May 25, 2026 at 06:08 PM IST
Rejecting suggestions of disenchantment among the youth, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on Monday alleged that the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a satirical political platform recently launched by digital strategist Abhijit Dipke, was another narrative manufactured by the Opposition. Comparing it to the “Constitution in danger” campaign ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Saini said the movement would be short-lived.
“Cockroach ki ayu kitni hai (what is the lifespan of a cockroach)?” the Chief Minister said when asked about the CJP and the traction it has gained on social media. The CJP has rapidly gained popularity online, with its Instagram following standing at over 22 million, surpassing the combined follower count of both the BJP and the Congress within days of its launch.
“I interacted with youth this morning as well. I spoke to many of them. But I did not see any disappointment among them. Not even one young person told me he was frustrated,” Saini said at an interaction in the national capital.
“The Opposition had built a narrative before the Lok Sabha elections that the Constitution would be in danger if the BJP crossed 400 seats. The Congress leader who carries a copy of the Constitution and says it is under threat has forgotten how many times his own party altered it in the past. I do not know who writes the script for him,” Saini said, referring to the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi.
“In the last 11-and-a-half years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken several steps to protect the Constitution. When Article 370 was abrogated, he was protecting the Constitution to ensure ‘One nation, one Constitution’,” the CM claimed.
Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition INDIA bloc led by the Congress had campaigned on the claim that the BJP’s target of winning 400-plus seats was aimed at changing the Constitution.
Modi BJP’s face in Punjab polls
Saini, a senior BJP leader who has been making frequent visits to Punjab, said Modi would also be the party’s face in next year’s Punjab Assembly elections, just as he was in West Bengal, where the BJP “scored a landslide victory and formed the government for the first time”.
“He will be the face of the party and once we win the election, we will have a strong Chief Minister, just as it happened in West Bengal,” Saini said.
The BJP, which had long played second fiddle to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab, contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on its own after the latter walked out of the alliance in 2021 over the now-repealed farm laws. The BJP failed to win a single seat in the state.
Saini is increasingly being viewed as a key player for the BJP in Punjab. “Haryana and Punjab are one,” he said, adding that people in Punjab were closely watching Haryana’s governance model.
“They are seeing how promises made in Haryana are fulfilled, while the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadi Party (AAP) government in Punjab has failed miserably in meeting people’s expectations,” he said. The BJP currently holds only two seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly.
The Haryana CM belongs to the Saini community, an OBC group with influence in parts of Punjab, while his mother is from the Jat Sikh community, which constitutes around 20-30% of the state’s population.
Referring to Haryana’s assistance to Punjab during floods, Saini said officials in every district of Haryana had been instructed to adopt a particular area in Punjab to coordinate relief measures.
When told that the BJP lacked a strong state leadership in Punjab, Saini again cited West Bengal as an example. “We will go with PM Modi’s face. In West Bengal, we did so and now we have Suvendu Adhikari as the CM,” he said.
