30-foot cockroach effigy burnt alongside Ravan at Delhi’s Pitampura Ramlila; organisers say it stood for filth

A 30-foot cardboard cockroach went up in flames alongside the effigies of Ravan, Kumbhkaran and Meghnad at a Dussehra celebration in Delhi’s Pitampura on Tuesday evening. The effigy stood at the DDA ground in Netaji Subhash Place, where the Shri Keshav Ramlila Committee holds its annual Ramlila, and the burning drew a large crowd.

The committee says the cockroach stood for filth. “The burning of the cockroach effigy this year was aimed at raising awareness about filth and the health problems associated with it,” said its president, Ashok Goel Devraha, the BJP MLA from Model Town, according to NDTV. He said cockroaches are linked to unhygienic conditions and problems such as allergies and asthma, and that the effigy was not intended as a dig at any individual, party, institution or organisation. The committee tied it to the Swachh Bharat and Swachh Delhi campaigns.

Devraha said the committee burns an extra effigy representing a social problem every year, citing earlier ones linked to COVID-19, Naxalism and foreign goods. Before the event, he told PTI the cockroach would be counted among the asuras in Ravan’s army. Delhi minister Kapil Mishra was the chief guest, and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Arun Singh and VHP Delhi president Kapil Khanna also attended.

The choice of insect drew attention online because of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a satirical pressure group founded by Abhijeet Dipke in May that uses the cockroach as its symbol. It is currently protesting in Delhi to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

Dipke responded to a video of the effigy shared by news agency ANI with a post on X: “Thank you for the free publicity.” CJP legal head Ratna Singh wrote on X: “Burning a cockroach effigy on Dussehra only shows how rattled the ruling party is.” She added: “Clearly, we are doing something right.”

The effigy also drew a formal complaint. AAP’s Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj wrote to Lieutenant Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu and the Delhi Police commissioner seeking an FIR against the organisers and Mishra, accusing them in a post on X of “deliberately hurting religious sentiments, altering sacred Hindu traditions and attempting to incite enmity between communities.” Mishra responded: “The effigy being burnt is that of a cockroach, yet it is the ‘termites’—the political termites of this nation—who are feeling the pain,” according to The Times of India.