5 min readNew DelhiMay 26, 2026 07:00 AM IST First published on: May 26, 2026 at 07:00 AM ISTCockroaches are incredibly resilient insects that have been around for hundreds of millions of years, by some estimates since the time of dinosaurs. Over the past couple of weeks, they have dominated the news cycle, with satirical online platform Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) raising the government’s hackles and inviting a ban on its social media accounts.While the cat-and-mouse game between the government and the CJP goes on — it returned to X with an alternative account — there is another claimant for the mantle of the “real cockroach”. Congress’s youth wing, the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), has got in on the act through memes and songs via its alternative X account, the Indian Youth Cockroaches, and a website. And to emphasise that it is different and the real deal, it also had a message for the CJP.Advertisement“Real cockroaches are not just online revolutionaries. You have to be on the ground and fight the system,” read one of the IYC’s social media posts on Sunday, accompanied by a video clip of a Youth Congress protest in Surat against the BJP-led Centre over the NEET paper leak. The message was clear: it is not just a satirical platform confined to the online world. Another post the day before had taken a jab at the CJP’s founder, Abhijit Dipke, who is Boston-based. “Indian Youth Cockroaches > Boston Cockroach,” it read. And on Monday, the Congress-backed account posted more videos of protests by “real cockroaches”.While the IYC has been flooding its social media handles with memes and songs, its leaders claim they are neither playing catch-up with the CJP nor copying it. They say the outfit has been protesting against Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak since it came to light. It held a press conference on May 12 and organised a street protest the following day.Congress a day lateThe cockroach entered the Indian political lexicon on May 15 when Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant compared unemployed youth drifting into journalism and activism with the insect. The remarks drew criticism, following which the CJI clarified that it is “totally baseless” to suggest that he criticised the youth. The IYC claims it got to work on a website — that has since been taken down — but Dipke’s website went live a day before its site did. “It got traction because some politicians endorsed his website and it exploded on the internet,” said IYC’s social media head Manu Jain.AdvertisementThe Youth Congress says it has been churning out cockroach memes from May 16 onwards. But the outfit was perhaps a day too late and got eclipsed by Dipke’s platform and the subsequent controversy generated by the ban on its account. The Youth Congress, its leader says, came out with something called the “Cockroach Times” on May 16 itself.“We are not in a competition with anybody. We are the real cockroaches on the ground fighting for the youth, be it on NEET or on the issue of unemployment. Most of the AI videos that the CJP is using are created by us. We are taking the lead,” Jain said, emphasising the difference between his outfit’s efforts and that of Dipke. “We are the ones who are fighting on the streets and facing cases every day. So we call ourselves the real cockroaches.”“Our website was blocked by the government, but now we are back with another website, youthcockroach.org. Our website is up and we are trying to connect with the youth,” Jain said.IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib also emphasised the difference between the two “cockroaches”. “We laid a siege to Education Minister Pradhan’s residence. All our state units have been holding protests,” he said. He said the organisation’s social media wing could be using the cockroach theme to tap into the algorithm. “We are not confined to social media; we are on the ground,” he said.While the Congress or its top leadership has so far not weighed in on the satirical movement, many in the party believe that millions following the CJP’s handles on social media, especially Instagram, shows there is underlying anger and disenchantment among the youth that the mainstream Opposition has not been able to tap into. A section of the leadership also believes that the youth and student wings of the party should be more dynamic and fleet-footed.