The Cockroach Janta Party launched with a slogan on day one, a logo on day two, and a manifesto on day three. The five-point agenda is the document that takes the movement from t-shirt to position paper. Here is a guided walk-through — one point at a time — with a note on what each demand actually does and where the deeper argument lives.
A standing caveat, repeated by CJP itself: the movement is not registered with the Election Commission of India, and these five points are not legislative bills. They are a public-pressure agenda — written to be argued, defended and acted upon by politicians who actually hold office.
Demand 1: No Rajya Sabha seat for any retiring Chief Justice of India
The first demand attacks a single, specific incentive: the post-retirement Rajya Sabha nomination of a retired CJI. CJP's argument is straightforward — the judiciary cannot remain independent if its highest office is auditioning for the next job while still on the bench. The proposal is not anti-CJI; it is anti-incentive.
If you want the full institutional history of the post-retirement appointment problem in India, see our deep-dive on the Rajya Sabha CJI ban. The 2020 example most commonly cited in legal commentary is sitting somewhere in the back of every reader's head; CJP would like it not to sit there comfortably.
Demand 2: CEC accountable under UAPA for deleted votes
The second demand is the most rhetorically explosive of the five. It says that if any legitimate vote is deleted from the electoral rolls — anywhere, under any government — the Chief Election Commissioner shall be arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Taking away a citizen's vote, the manifesto argues, is no less than terrorism.
"Taking away the voting rights of a citizen is no less than terrorism."
— CJP Manifesto, point 2
The legal-policy critique of using UAPA against constitutional office-holders is a real one, and we engage with it in our piece on what the UAPA demand actually means. The political point of the demand, though, is the inversion: a law that has primarily been used against citizens is being turned against the official responsible for guarding citizens' most basic political right.
Demand 3: Women's reservation raised to 55%
The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam fixed women's reservation in Parliament and state assemblies at 33%. CJP argues that 33% is the floor, not the ceiling — and proposes raising it to 55%, the actual share of women in the population by some estimates, and a number with no precedent in mainstream Indian politics.
Two things make this demand interesting. First, it is the only one in the manifesto that is a clean policy ask with a clean number. Second, it is the only one whose immediate target is a sitting law, not an institution. We argue the case in detail in the 55% women's reservation deep-dive, and lay out the political genealogy in the Indian women's reservation debate.
Demand 4: Time-bound action against the Election Commission for vote deletion
This is the procedural sibling of Demand 2. Where Demand 2 is criminal-law maximalism, Demand 4 is administrative-law plumbing. It asks for three things:
- An investigation into every confirmed instance of legitimate-voter deletion.
- A fixed time window within which the investigation must finish.
- Action against the officers responsible — published, named, and on the record.
The point is to end what CJP calls "inquiries that outlive the elections they were meant to protect." For a state-by-state field guide to spotting voter-roll deletion, see our explainer on vote deletion in India.
Demand 5: Political literacy and civic infrastructure for the young
The fifth demand is the one that turns the movement from a critique into a programme. The argument: India has the world's largest youth population and one of the world's most disengaged youth electorates. The "lazy, chronically online, cockroach" generation has been written off as politically inert. CJP wants to channel its energy into:
- Political awareness, taught at scale.
- Higher voter turnout, especially in 18–25 first-time voters.
- Contesting elections at panchayat, municipal and state level, starting with the next cycle.
This is also the demand that explains why CJP is not contesting the 2029 general election. The lower-tier focus is intentional. We lay out the underlying argument in our political-literacy explainer.
What the manifesto is — and isn't
Read together, the five points form a coherent worldview: judiciary independent of executive bait, election authority accountable for the vote, gender representation matched to demography, administrative consequences for administrative failure, and a programmatic path for the young to step into politics. None of them require CJP to be a registered political party. All of them can be argued from a t-shirt.
Read separately, they are also the seed of a much larger policy stack — judicial reform (deep-dive), election-commission accountability (deep-dive), and a youth-organising programme that competes with the existing Nari Shakti framing (comparison).
What to do with it
If the agenda lands, the next steps are short: read the full manifesto in CJP's own words, browse the honorary members who have already taken cards, and join the swarm. The card is free and the manifesto is yours to argue with.