Kanhaiya trashes talks of joining Congress

Communist Part of India (CPI) leader and former president of JNU Students’ Union Kanhaiya Kumar has dismissed the speculation that he was planning to join Congress

Communist Part of India (CPI) leader and former president of JNU Students’ Union Kanhaiya Kumar has dismissed the speculation that he was planning to join Congress.

Communist Part of India (CPI) leader and former president of JNU Students’ Union Kanhaiya Kumar. (HT FIle)

“There is no truth in it. I am in mainstream politics and a member of a registered national party. When in politics, one interacts with so many people. Currently, I am in Delhi to attend our party’s national executive,” Kanahiya told HT on phone.

Congress sources say Kanhaiya had met former party president Rahul Gandhi twice in the recent past. “Prashant Kishor was present during both the meeting. Negotiations are in the final stages,” claimed a Congress leader from Bihar, wishing not to be named.

Kanhaiya, however, said there was no such meeting. “What has fuelled the rumours is my photograph with Congress leader Nadeem Jawed with whom I had lunch recently in Delhi. Nadeem is a former president of Congress’s student wing NSUI and a former general secretary of Indian Youth Congress. He posted our photographs on social media. As far as Prashant Kishor is concerned, we have been interacting often after my defeat in Lok Sabha elections in 2019,” said Kanhaiya, who lost to BJP heavyweight and union minister Giriraj Singh from Begusarai in the last parliamentary polls.

Speculation about Kanhaiya switching sides became intense after a censure motion was passed against him for indiscipline in the CPI meeting held at Hyderabad in January this year.

The censure motion was taken up after Kanhaiya’s supporters allegedly roughed up Indu Bhushan, the office secretary, in the party office at Patna on December 1.

Congress leaders with the knowledge of development said Nadeem, a former Congress MLA from Jaunpur, has been given the responsibility of convincing the former JNU Students’ Union president and they have had several rounds of talk.

However, asked if he was not getting close to Congress, Kanhaiya said, “When I met Nitish Kumar last year and a JD(U) minister earlier this year, there was a speculation that I was joining JD(U). Why should I when they are in alliance with the BJP,” he said.

Earlier this year, two Congress MLAs from Bihar, Shakeel Ahmad Khan and Awadhesh Singh, had shared dais with Kanhaiya at his Jana Gana Mana rally in Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on February 27.

Khan, also a former JNU Students’ Union president, had then said their presence there was only to support the cause as the rally was part of a campaign against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the country.

Congress’s fortunes have been on a steady decline in Bihar, where it won just 19 assembly seats in the 2020 polls in the state’s 243-member House.