Nearly six months after emerging as a protest platform, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) is attempting to build an organisational presence across the country, appointing zonal leaders and constituting state-level coordination committees.But even as it expands its structure, the organisation says it has no intention of entering electoral politics. “We are a political pressure group and will continue to be one. There is no plan to float a political party in the future,” CJP member and National Media Coordinator Subhasree Das told The Indian Express.The latest appointments cover 10 zones, including Uttar Pradesh, and come ahead of the Assembly elections in the state, giving the expansion added political significance. Das, however, said the exercise was part of a planned effort to build the organisation rather than a response to any particular electoral contest.“It has been six months since the CJP was formed. We felt this was the right time to expand our organisation and increase our strength so that more and more people can raise their voices on issues ranging from local concerns to those affecting students,” Das said.Building an organisation beyond the protestsIn a statement issued on November 14, the CJP announced the appointment of Kshitij Pagar as West Zone in-charge and Dr Vivek Sangwan as North Zone in-charge. Muhammad Junaid and Geegraj Jorli have been appointed members of the North Zone Coordination Committee.The organisation has also constituted state and regional coordination committees in Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand, besides setting up a North East Zone Coordination Committee.The West Bengal committee has 12 members, while the Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh committees have 14 and 16 members, respectively. The Maharashtra committee comprises 15 members, and the Bihar committee has 13. The North East Zone committee has 14 members.Story continues below this adThe committees in Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttarakhand have four, five, six and six members, respectively.Also Read | Engineer, lawyer, CAs: Meet the 12 members leading Cockroach Janta PartyThe newly appointed members will coordinate the organisation’s activities at the regional and state levels and work towards expanding its network. The CJP says the appointments are intended to strengthen its grassroots presence, improve coordination among state units and create a network of local representatives who can raise issues concerning citizens.Elaborating on the role and responsibilities of the zonal committee members, Ajinkya Shinde, CJP’s national organisation in-charge, told The Indian Express that the newly appointed members would work at the state level to “hold elected representatives accountable for their work and the promises they have made to the people”.“We are going constituency-wise, starting with Lok Sabha constituencies. As the party’s membership expands, we will move to the Vidhan Sabha level,” Shinde said.Story continues below this adOn the party’s expansion plans and membership drive, Shinde said it had already launched a physical membership campaign to encourage more youngsters to join.“We have started in Maharashtra, where we are going to colleges. Even today, we visited some public places, and our members, including Ashutosh, are already visiting Haryana to motivate more and more people to join the CJP,” he said.He highlighted that the party was also distributing QR codes to those interested in joining, through which they could enrol online. An identity card is also being generated digitally after registration.A network of young professionals and volunteersAsked about the selection of the zonal committee members, Shinde said the party had appointed those who had been associated with it since the beginning of the Jantar Mantar protest.Story continues below this ad“As of now, we have appointed them as party functionaries. These are people who have been with us since Day One of the Jantar Mantar protest,” he said.Das said most of the newly appointed zonal and state committee members were young professionals. Some had left their jobs to work with the organisation, while others continued in their professions alongside their CJP responsibilities.Also Read | ‘Plan to visit states where students are facing issues’: CJP maps national expansion“Like me, I am 34 years old and a software engineer working with a reputed company in Bengaluru. I lead two teams at the company but still manage to devote time to the CJP. Some of the members are law graduates, IT professionals and students pursuing undergraduate courses in different streams,” she said..The CJP was formed in May this year after Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant compared some youths to cockroaches. Following the remark, Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old from Maharashtra who was studying in Boston, created an Instagram account named Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The account reportedly attracted two crore followers within a day.Story continues below this adDipke subsequently joined hands with two friends, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, in India to organise a protest against the NEET paper leak in June-July. Thousands gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in support of the demonstration, which demanded the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.In October, the CJP announced another round of protests, this time demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged discrepancies in electoral rolls and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.