CJP Series🪳 Part 4 of 12

Opposition parties and the CJP: Mahua Moitra (TMC) signed up. Kirti Azad signed up. Congress is watching carefully. AAP is conflicted because the founder worked for AAP. The Left has issued a statement of philosophical support. The opposition is doing what the opposition does best: showing up after the moment and trying to claim they were there the whole time.

By Shyam Mudireddy  |  May 22, 2026  |  BreakingBakwas.com

NEW DELHI — Mahua Moitra, the TMC MP from West Bengal who is among India's most entertaining and most combative opposition voices, did not require much deliberation before joining the CJP. Mahua Moitra is constitutionally incapable of missing a satirical political moment. She joined the CJP membership Google form with the enthusiasm of someone who had been waiting for exactly this kind of cultural event and is delighted it has arrived in her political lifetime. She is the CJP's highest-profile member. She brings approximately 4 million Twitter followers and a television presence that the cockroach, being an insect, cannot fully replicate. The cockroach is grateful.

Kirti Azad, the former BJP cricketer-turned-Congress-politician who has switched parties enough times to qualify for a party-hopping Hall of Fame, signed up with somewhat less fanfare but with equal sincerity. Kirti Azad's membership in the CJP is either a genuine statement of solidarity with India's unemployed youth or his instinct to be wherever the momentum is — and at 19 million followers, the momentum is very clearly here. Both motivations are possible. The CJP has not asked about motivation. The Google form does not have a box for it.

"We support the aspirations of India's youth."— The Congress party, approximately seventy-two hours after the CJP passed 10 million followers, issuing a statement that stopped short of endorsing the CJP but communicated sufficient alignment to be able to say "we were broadly supportive" in future retrospective analyses. The Congress party has been broadly supportive of many things at 10 million followers and considerably less supportive of those things at 500,000 followers, which is when the support would have been more useful. The CJP does not need Congress's support. The CJP has 19 million followers. Congress has fewer Instagram followers than the CJP. Congress is in a complicated position. Congress is always in a complicated position. The cockroach does not wait for Congress. Nothing and nobody waits for Congress.
AAP's Complicated Feelings

The Aam Aadmi Party's relationship with the CJP is structurally awkward. Abhijeet Dipke, the CJP's founder, is a former AAP worker. He worked with them on political communications. He then left, went to Boston, and created the CJP. AAP has not endorsed the CJP. AAP has not condemned the CJP. AAP is standing at a distance from the CJP with the expression of an older sibling watching a younger sibling become more popular at school — a combination of pride, territorial instinct, and the very specific discomfort of someone who taught you everything and is now watching you apply it more effectively. Kejriwal has issued no statement on the CJP. His silence is being read by different people as solidarity, indifference, and concern, which means his silence is being interpreted exactly as ambiguously as he intended, which is the most Kejriwal outcome possible.

The Left parties — CPM, CPI — have issued philosophical statements of support for the CJP's demands regarding independent media and youth employment, which are statements so carefully worded that they could be read as endorsements of the CJP or as endorsements of the general principle of independent media and youth employment, which the Left has been endorsing since 1922 and will continue to endorse regardless of which insect is currently the symbolic vehicle. The Left support is genuine. The Left's Instagram following, for context, is approximately 200,000. The Left is not driving the 19 million. The Left is noting it approvingly from a distance, which is the Left's characteristic stance on moments of popular energy that did not emerge from a party congress resolution.

Mahua Moitra CJPCongress Arrives LateAAP Complicated FeelingsLeft Philosophical SupportOpposition Google FormKirti Azad Joins Everything
Disclaimer: Satire. Mahua Moitra and Kirti Azad's CJP membership is documented from AP and Al Jazeera. Congress's statement is a composite of documented party responses. Kejriwal's silence is documented and is his characteristic communication style. — Ed.