India’s viral parody political movement, the “Cockroach Janta Party”, says its website has been blocked just days after launching, as its online following continues to surge past 20mn.

According to The BBC, the group, known as CJP, said its site was no longer accessible in India and appeared to be down elsewhere. Founder Abhijeet Dipke said Indian authorities had “taken down our iconic website” and asked why they were “so scared of cockroaches”.

He wrote on X that the group was already working on a replacement “home”, adding: “Cockroaches never die.”

The group’s official X account, which has more than 200,000 followers, is also inaccessible in India. Users attempting to access it are shown a message stating it has been withheld “in response to a legal demand”.

Dipke, a political communications strategist and student at Boston University, has also claimed that both his personal Instagram account and the group’s account have been hacked.

The Cockroach Janta Party satirises the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has governed India since 2014. The Indian government is highly sensitive to challenges to its rule.

The group describes itself as “the voice of the lazy and unemployed” and uses tongue-in-cheek membership rules, including being chronically online and having “the ability to rant professionally”.

It has used AI-generated imagery to promote its campaign and has inspired the hashtag #MainBhiCockroach (“I too am a cockroach”).

Its Instagram following has grown to more than 22mn users, more than twice that of the BJP.

In recent days, young volunteers have appeared dressed as cockroaches at clean-up drives and protests.

Dipke previously told the BBC that the movement’s popularity reflected frustration among young Indians over high unemployment and a sense of exclusion from mainstream politics.