Protest march to Parliament to resume today, says CJP leader Abhijeet Dipke

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leader Abhijeet Dipke has said that the march to Parliament will resume on Tuesday.

"We will march again [on Tuesday]. We are not leaving this protest site," Dipke told India Today on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday.

After the police on Monday removed the protesters' tent and stage in a crackdown, protesters returned to Janta Mantar later in the day and erected a tent and makeshift stage to resume their movement.

The CJP-led march to the parliament on Monday was disrupted by a government crackdown that involved cyclic lathi-charge through the day, detentions, firing of tear gas, and suspension of internet services. Several protesters were injured, some of them seriously, in the police and paramilitary personnel beatings.

CJP functionaries told India Today that the protest will continue until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns. They added that a meeting on the next march was still underway at the time of the conversation last night.

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For weeks, the CJP has been holding a protest at Jantar Mantar over the leak of the question paper for medical entrance exam Neet and demand for accountability for irregularities in Neet and other competitive exams. They have also sought the resignation of Pradhan.

The movement has been helmed by activist Sonam Wangchuk, who held a hunger strike at the site until he was whisked away by the police last week. The police are currently holding Wangchuk at the Safdarjung hospital.

Even though the Union government made contact with the CJP and held preliminary talks with the movement's leaders, it has neither made any commitments not assured that protesters would not be subjected to armed crackdowns again.

CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka on Monday held talks with Union Health Minister JP Nadda, but the government has not yet shown any sign of accepting any demand or setting up a mechanism of resolving the situation.