For the first time since June 6, Bhagwan Shankar Dipke and Anita Dipke feel a sense of relief. “This is very good. For two-and-a-half months, the students have been fighting for Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. This is victory,” said Anita, as news of Pradhan resigning as the Union Education Minister spread across the country.Bhagwan Shankar and Anita, who live in Aurangabad, now called Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, are the parents of Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) who went on to lead one of India’s biggest student protests. “Abhijeet has fought patiently. He was slapped and vilified. He has achieved so much at such a young age,” added Anita.On Saturday morning, Bhagwan Shankar, who retired as a civil engineer at Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), went to a temple in the nearby Pandharpur village and prayed for the country.Anita managed to talk to her son over a video call on Friday. Abhijeet told her, “Mummy, thoda viral ho gaya”. She says that, initially, she “did not approve of what Abhijeet was doing”. “Then, I saw that he was fighting for students,” she says. His father adds, “Abhijeet will never go into politics.”Also Read | The rise and fall of Dharmendra Pradhan: BJP’s trusted organiser undone by NEET leakBhagwan Shankar says nobody in their family has been in politics: “Not even a sarpanch.” He adds that Abhijeet asked them not to come to Delhi as the protests grew. “We were hearing of protests all around us. I had never thought Abhijeet’s name would spread so far. My biggest dream for him was the civil services. I used to tell him that, if he cracked the UPSC exam, he would have a secure career.”Abhijeet visited home a month back, after attending a CJP event in Nagpur.His parents suffer from blood pressure problems, among other issues, and are worried about Abhijeet. “We wanted Pradhan to resign immediately. Else, we, too, had decided to go on a fast,” says Bhagwan Shankar. A police team is stationed outside their house. “They tell us not to go to protests, so we are just sitting at home,” says Anita.Story continues below this adAt the Dipke household, education is of paramount importance. Abhijeet, who has an elder sister, was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and become an engineer. He was a quiet, studious boy and did not give his parents reasons to worry. His father mentions Abhijeet’s passion for cricket. “I had to stop his cricket. With so many cricketers around us in our country, what future did a middle-class boy have?” says Bhagwan Shankar.Abhijeet completed his schooling at Saraswati Bhuvan College in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and then enrolled at Sinhagad Institute in Pune for a degree in engineering. This was a leap for the family. “Hamara ristedar vagairah, koi bhi nahin Pune mein. Sirf padhai ke liye usko bheja tha Pune mein. (We have no relatives in Pune. It was only for his education that we sent him to Pune),” says Bhagwan Shankar.Also Read | How Delhi’s Jantar Mantar found out about Pradhan’s resignation, and reactedBut Abhijeet’s heart was not in engineering. “He wanted to study journalism. Being a civil engineer, I had knowledge of medical and engineering courses and colleges, but journalism was an entirely unknown territory,” says Bhagwan Shankar. Abhijeet enrolled at Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth in Pune to study journalism and graduated in 2021, while simultaneously working for the Aam Aadmi Party’s social media platforms.“When he told me that he wanted to pursue further studies in Public Relations, I was close to retirement. I took an education loan and Abhijeet left to complete his post-graduation in Public Relations at Boston University’s College of Communication,” says Bhagwan Shankar, adding, “I am still paying off his education loan.”Story continues below this adAbhijeet completed his studies at Boston University in May this year, around the time Chief Justice of India Surya Kant made the “cockroach” remark. In response to this remark, which the Chief Justice later clarified, Abhijeet launched a satirical platform named Cockroach Janta Party. What followed was a social media storm. Eventually, the movement shifted from the Internet to the streets and tens of thousands of students in Delhi and other parts of the country demanded Pradhan’s resignation over the leaks of question papers of competitive exams such as NEET-UG.Looking back on the events over the past couple of months that catapulted Abhijeet into the limelight, Bhagwan Shankar says, “I had never imagined he would become so big.”