Election 2019: Kanhaiya Kumar to contest against Giriraj Singh

Mumbai's Communist Party of India (CPI) secretary props up Bihar's poster boy; Vidyarthi Parishad scoffs at claims

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Giriraj Singh will contest from Begusarai in Bihar, BJP president Amit Shah stated yesterday, putting the will-he-won't-he speculation firmly to rest. Giriraj Singh had earlier sulked that his party had humiliated him by not allowing him to contest from Nawada.

These reports had prompted Bihar's poster boy Kanhaiya Kumar, student leader and Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate to taunt Giriraj Singh. Mumbai's top Communist cadre, Prakash Reddy, secretary CPI Mumbai and National Council member though pronounced that, "Giriraj has sensed that he will lose. I am quite sure Kanhaiya Kumar is going to win."

For Reddy, "It is a combination of Kanhaiya and the fact that Begusarai has always veered towards the Communists that will propel the CPI to a win. Kanhaiya Kumar also has the gift of words, as a young man, he had won several debating competitions organised by the Communist party."

'Son of the soil'

Reddy said, "Kanhaiya is the quintessential son of the Begusarai soil; he knows the people and his constituency so well. Son of an Aangawadi worker, he is well-versed with the problems of the poor, as he experienced these ordeals himself. Giriraj Singh wanted to run away as he knows the people are with Kanhaiya Kumar."

Reddy refused to accept that there was a sedition case against Kanhaiya, who is accused of raising slogans calling for the break-up of India at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

"That is settled, he was not part of the sloganeering. He challenged the government, saying let there be a speedy trial," said Reddy also dismissing the question about the Communist ideology fading in Mumbai. "Who says it is fading?" he shot back, denouncing the Modi government on numerous fronts, the secretary claimed that, "the rich people's children go abroad; we the Communists live here, the real patriots."

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) Mumbai's State Secretary (Konkan region) Aniket Ovhal scoffed at the Communist Kanhaiya will win claim. "The Communists need to bolster not just their candidate but their flagging morale," he said adding, "the public will remember the anti-national slogans raised on the JNU campus case, even though Kanhaiya claims he was not involved."

Ovhal added, "Radicalism and going against the grain always gets you applause, but this so called popularity may not make you win an election. The ground reality is different, as so many very popular candidates of different political dispensation have bitten the dust."

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