Abhijeet Dipke dares Modi govt to arrest him again at Kochi anti-SIR rally

At his first public protest since his release from prison, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP government at ‘Jantar Mantar @ Kochi’, daring them to arrest him again if they thought jail could silence him.

“Arrest me and put me in jail. However many times you do it, I will return to protest,” Dipke told the gathering at Rajendra Maidan in Kochi on Saturday (November 7), daring the government to silence him through imprisonment.

He also called Prime Minister Narendra Modi US President Donald Trump's “puppet”, accusing him of surrendering India's interests to American pressure. “Modi is Trump's puppet. He is acting according to what Trump tells him to do,” he said.

Dipke targets Modi over funding

Responding to the BJP's allegations that CJP was receiving foreign funding, Dipke turned the charge against the Prime Minister. "It is not CJP that is receiving foreign funds. It is Modi. It is Modi who has sold the country," he said, accusing the government of compromising India's interests while questioning a civil society organisation's funding.

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Dipke also invoked Mahatma Gandhi, BR Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru to challenge the BJP's political narrative. "Gandhi is the soul of India, Ambedkar the backbone and Nehru the mind of it," he said, placing the three leaders at the centre of India's political and constitutional imagination.

He said Modi could never measure up to Nehru, irrespective of how long he remained in power. Taking a swipe at the Prime Minister's projection as a strong leader, Dipke questioned why he was afraid of facing the people. "The government's response to this protest shows how much of a coward this 56-inch-chested leader is," he said, referring to Modi's familiar political image. He also predicted that Modi would be voted out of power in 2029.

Congress stays away from event

Interestingly, Dipke contrasted the Modi government with the previous Manmohan Singh-led UPA government, arguing that the latter was more democratic. The comparison added another dimension to his criticism, locating the present government's functioning against the record of an earlier Congress-led administration, when he was accused of keeping a distance from the Congress.

The rally began with a march from Marine Drive to Rajendra Maidan, followed by a public meeting. Organised under the banner ‘Jantar Mantar @ Kochi’, a civil society initiative, the mobilisation demanded the withdrawal of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The initiative was conceived as a civil society platform to bring together all non-BJP political parties, student organisations and democratic groups. However, the Congress stayed away from the programme, even though its local leaders were part of the organising committee. Its absence was conspicuous at an event whose stated objective was to create a broad-based platform against the BJP.

Prakash Raj questions UDF govt

Actor Prakash Raj played a leading role at the gathering. His participation was among the most visible aspects of the Kochi mobilisation, with the actor taking a prominent position at the public meeting and the march, raising azadi slogans.

Earlier in the day, Prakash Raj had criticised the UDF government over the controversy at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit in Kalady, where the suspension of students and the subsequent confrontation between the university administration and student organisations had triggered a political row. Questioning the government’s handling of the issue, he drew a parallel between the UDF government's response and that of the BJP government at the Centre.

The criticism assumed significance in the context of the rally's stated civil society character. While taking a leading role in mobilising opposition to the BJP government at the Centre, Prakash Raj had also chosen to question the UDF government in Kerala over its handling of a campus dispute. This, sources said, did not go down well with the Congress leadership. However, they stopped short of citing it as the reason for the absence of Congress leaders from the rally.

Left groups dominate gathering

The public meeting brought together several representatives of organisations that had participated in the anti-CEC protests in Delhi. CJP's Abhijeet Dipke, SFI's Shilpa S, AISA's Danish Ali and AISF's Viraj Devang were among those on the stage. Ahammed Saju, the national president of MSF also participated.

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CPM leader and former minister P Rajeev and DYFI state president Chinju Jerome were among the political leaders present, along with cultural figures like NS Madhavan, Sunil P Elayidom and Ranjini Haridas.

The participation extended across a wide section of the Left spectrum, from the CPM and its affiliated organisations to groups on the far-left fringes. Student organisations, activists and civil society representatives also formed a substantial part of the gathering.

Their convergence in Kochi was around the demands concerning SIR and the Election Commission, rather than a common political programme.

The composition of the gathering was therefore different from the broad non-BJP platform envisaged by the organisers. While the civil society initiative sought participation from across the Opposition spectrum, the Congress remained absent and the visible mobilisation came predominantly from Left organisations, student groups and independent activists.