New Delhi:
Former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar has jumped ship from his parent political body, the left-oriented CPM, to the Congress.
Kanhaiya Kumar had joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or just CPM just before the 2019 general election and contested from his hometown Begusarai in Bihar against BJP stalwart Giriraj Singh. Despite his widely touted campaign, the students’ leader had failed to upend the popularity of Singh. Kumar had banked on his own Bhumihar caste affiliation to give Singh a run for money, but could not.
While there have been several JNUSU presidents in the past, Kumar shot to fame in 2016 after his alleged anti-India sloganeering on the varsity campus at an event commemorating the death anniversary of Parliament attack mastermind and slain terrorist Afzal Guru.
Kumar, along with Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, was arrested and a sedition case slapped on them by the Delhi Police. Their arrest had divided the country: while left-liberals cried foul, the right-leaning population hailed the arrests. Nonetheless, it triggered a nationwide debate.
However, it took the Delhi Police a whole three years to file a chargesheet in the case, on January 14, 2019.
Kumar
charged the 1,200-page chargesheet as “politically motivated”. He was charged with offenses under sections 124A (sedition), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 465 (punishment for forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 143 (punishment for being a member of an unlawful assembly), 149 (being a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (punishment for rioting) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
A while later, forensic analysis by investigating agencies had revealed that the video footage wherein the JNU leader was seen shouting “Aazadi” was doctored and there was no evidence of Kumar yelling at the event.
But, by then Kumar had reaped the political harvest of the controversy, and had already transformed into a full-fledged political leader.
]]>
, International, ,