Dhruv Rathee, Abhijit Dipke, Prakash Raj join video calling for Oct 8 and Oct 10 protests

YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, Abhijit Dipke and the official Instagram account of the Cockroach Janta Party have jointly released a video. Dipke and Rathee appear together in it, along with well-known actor Prakash Raj.

The video comes at a time when the political climate in the country is heated over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Several Opposition parties, social organisations and groups of young people are protesting, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The three have come together on one platform around the same agitation.

In the video, Rathee appealed to people to reach Freedom Park in Bengaluru on October 8 "to save democracy". A People's Tribunal has also been organised at Freedom Park the same day, along with the protest against SIR. Rathee also asked people to join the protest on October 10 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, which will demand Kumar's resignation.

Prakash Raj also called on people to join the protest demanding Kumar's resignation, in a light-hearted Bollywood style with the line "Aali re aali, ab teri baari aali". Raj shared the news of Rathee joining the protest through his social media post.

Rathee's presence is being seen as significant for several reasons. The main one cited is that he has openly criticised the policies of the BJP and the Modi government at the Centre in his YouTube videos many times before. He has more than 2 crore subscribers on YouTube and about 2 crore followers on Instagram.

For this reason, it is being said that his involvement could take word of the protests to a large audience on social media and draw the attention of young people. It is believed this could affect the direction of the movement as a whole. All eyes are now on the protests in Bengaluru on October 8 and Delhi on October 10.