Team News Riveting
The Communist Party of India (CPI) has decided not to field former JNU leader Kanhaiya Kumar in the Bihar assembly election.
Though the party has not specified, the reluctance has resented the young leader who has emerged as the Communist parties’ poster boy against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Kumar was anticipating contesting the state polls under CPI banner.
Political observers in Bihar said that the recent development and Kanhaiya Kumar’s reservations to raise many sensitive issues underlined the feud.
In 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar along with Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid had emerged as new faces in politics of JNU for their anti-national slogans. Among the three, Kanhaiya Kumar was the only one to have tried his luck in electoral politics.
CPI fielded him from Begusarai Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar. Kanhaiya’s calculation that he would get one-sided support from the electorate seeing response in JNU and some Left-dominated pockets however went wrong. He had to face a humiliating defeat at the hands of BJP’s strongman Giriraj Singh who trounced him by a huge margin of over four lakh votes.
The outcome however cautioned the CPI as many political observers said raising anti-national sentiments would not go well with the voters. The rift between the party and Kanhaiya Kumar had increased to such a level that the latter had been keeping himself away from reacting on current sensitive issues.
The party has however included him in the list of its star campaigners for the Bihar polls.
