Gurugram: Ankit Baiyanpuria once stood next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and picked up a broom as part of a nationally televised cleanliness drive. This week, from a training camp in Russia, he picked up his phone instead—to tell the government it got something badly wrong.
The Sonipat-raised fitness influencer, who now commands 7.9 million followers on Instagram, shot to national fame in October 2023 when Modi chose him as his partner for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The two of them were filmed sweeping and picking up trash together on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti. The video, in which Modi tells him “Ankit, main aaj tumse kuch seekhunga,” is still live on the PM’s YouTube channel and X handle.
(Ankit, today I will learn something from you.)
During the interaction, Modi is seen asking Ankit about his 75-day fitness challenge, and ends his conversation by saying, “Chaliye, Ankit. bahut badhiya kaam kar rahe ho.”
(Okay, Ankit. You are doing a very good job.)
That optics-friendly association is exactly what makes his latest video striking.
Posting from Russia, where he is training ahead of an upcoming fight, Baiyanpuria said the police crackdown on protesting students in Delhi on 20 July was wrong, and went out of his way to strip away any suggestion that his closeness to the Prime Minister meant anything.
“Main PM ka koi special nahi, main bhi thare jaisa hoon,” he said.
(I’m nobody special to the PM, I’m just like the rest of you).
He said messages had poured in from people asking him to use his access to get the government to intervene, but that if his word carried any real weight, the issue would have been resolved the day the students first raised their voice. His support for their demands, he added, was not new.
Kisi bhi desh ki sabse badi taqat uske students hote hain.
Unki awaaz ko suna jaana chahiye, kyunki wahi kal ka Bharat banayenge.
I Stand With Students. 🤝🇮🇳
Hum Kisi Dharmik Propaganda ke sath nhi hai. Kl Jantar Mantar par छात्रों ke sath jo hua wo bhot Glt hai. Desh Democracy… pic.twitter.com/uR653Ch3jF
— Ankit Baiyanpuria (@baiyanpuria) July 21, 2026
Baiyanpuria was not alone. Haryanvi singer Mukesh Jaji released a video directly addressing the Prime Minister, saying silence was no longer an option—not for the government, and not for him, even if it cost him his songs or his writing.
He invoked the farmers’ protest and the women wrestlers’ protest before this one, calling the pattern of unrest impossible to look away from.
He said people hardly recover from one shock and the next is ready. After maltreatment of farmers and wrestlers, now children and women are being brutally beaten by police, he said.
“Mere hisaab se yeh loktantra nahi, shoktantra hai,” he said, urging fellow artistes to either show up at Jantar Mantar or post in support of the students.
(Ours is not a democracy but a system of shocks.)
Singer Harry Lather called the police conduct condemnable and urged the government to negotiate rather than dig in. Kurukshetra MP Naveen Jindal, asked about the lathi-charge, said any violence was unfortunate and that police needed to exercise restraint against protesters he described as “our children”, while also condemning “mischievous elements” who disrupt peaceful demonstrations.
Not every voice aligned with the protesters’ demands. Actor Thakur Kashish Pundir argued that removing the education minister would not fix anything, since the alleged corruption lay with the team printing question papers, not with the minister. Changing the minister repeatedly, he said, solves nothing if the system beneath is not held accountable—those responsible, he added, were already being acted against.
This is not an isolated moment. ThePrint reported Wednesday that as Sonam Wangchuk continued his hunger strike and Delhi Police responded to the CJP agitation with what protesters called a brutal lathi-charge, a clutch of Haryana’s biggest homegrown singers and rappers stepped out in open support of the students.
Rapper Dhanda Nyoliwala postponed his shows in solidarity, while singers Dev Kumar Deva, Ankit Baliyan and fitness icon Sandeep Arya appealed directly to the Prime Minister. Gulzaar Chhaniwala, Haryana’s most-streamed contemporary voice, had already visited the protesting students at Jantar Mantar before that.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: Soundtrack of dissent: Haryana pop stars lend voice to CJP protest—and giving up shows to do it