Kanhaiya Kumar to visit Barak Valley; Will campaign for AIUDF candidate in Sonai tomorrow

The visits of heavyweight political personalities in the Barak Valley are getting a new turn. Narendra Modi, Yogi Adityanath, Manoj Tiwari, then Amit Shah, the list is full of hotshot names. Now, for the Congress grand alliance in Barak Valley, Communist Party of India (CPI) national executive member and former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) President, Kanhaiya Kumar is going to visit Cachar district tomorrow to promote their campaign. This was announced in a press release on behalf of the CPI, which said that after arriving at the Kumbhirgram airport, Kanhaiya will go to the Janiganj area of Silchar to attend a party meeting. Then he’s scheduled to go to Swadhin Bazar area of Sonai, then Sildubi and lastly, Borkhola to campaign for the local candidates of the grand alliance.

In Sonai LAC, the grand alliance gas fielded Karim Uddin Barbhuiya of the AIUDF party, but in Borkhola LAC, the alliance has put their faith in veteran Congress leader Misbahul Islam Laskar. Co-incidentally, the Union Home Minister Amit Shah is also coming over to Cachar tomorrow to campaign for the BJP’s local candidates and the district BJP committee is also expecting a huge turnout at the event.

Kanhaiya Kumar rose to fame back in 2016, when he was the President of the JNU Students’ Union. Back then, during one of his speeches on the JNU campus, he raised the ‘Azadi’ slogan which became a national sensation, albeit also making him notorious among the rightwing circles especially the ruling BJP party. In February of the same year, Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested by the Delhi police over the charges of sedition in an event at the JNU campus, although he denied shouting any slogans against the integrity of the country. Later, he was released on bail by the Delhi High Court.

Kanhaiya Kumar completed his PhD in February 2019, titled ‘The Process of Decolonisation and Social Transformation in South Africa, 1994-2015’. He was then elected to the party National Council of the CPI and later, inducted into the CPI National Executive Council in 2019. He contested for the first time on a CPI ticket from the Begusarai constituency from Bihar for the 2019 Indian General Elections, eventually losing to Giriraj Singh of the BJP.