New Delhi: Former JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar was the surprise entry in the Congress’ list of Lok Sabha candidates from Delhi announced on Sunday.
Kanhaiya Kumar is now pitted against BJP’s Manoj Tiwari in the North East Delhi seat from where Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely was being considered by the party managers.
According to party insiders, the Delhi screening committee had sent only the name of Lovely for the North East seat but the Central Election Committee decided to field Kanhaiya Kumar, who hails from Bihar and would be able to woo the large concentration of population from UP and Bihar in the North East seat.
According to party insiders, former party chief Rahul Gandhi played a role behind the nomination of Kanhaiya Kumar, who has become a close aide over the past years.
Rahul’s acquaintance with Kanhaiya started in 2016 after the Congress leader attacked the central government for arresting the JNU student union leader for allegedly raising anti-national slogans at an event on the campus to mark the death anniversary of Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru.
Later, Kanhaiya met and thanked the Amethi MP for supporting him. Kumar, who had joined the CPI ahead of the 2019 national elections, contested the Lok Sabha polls from the Begusarai seat in his home state Bihar but lost to Giriraj Singh of the BJP.
Kumar, who joined the Congress in 2021 at Rahul’s behest, was being considered by the party for the Begusarai seat in 2024 also but the seat went to the CPI as part of the INDIA bloc.
According to party insiders, soon after induction, the managers realized Kanhaiya’s talent of being a fiery orator and started deploying him to target the central government.
Later, he was one of the permanent fellows who walked along with Rahul Gandhi for the entire stretch of his first Bharat Jodo Yatra that started from Kanyakumari on Sep 7, 2022, and ended in Kashmir on Jan 30, 2023. Soon, Kumar was made the AICC in charge of the party’s students wing NSUI and was a regular speaker to brief about Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra part two along with communications in charge Jairam Ramesh.
The Congress has got three out of seven seats in alliance with AAP in Delhi.
On the remaining two seats the party has fielded veteran JP Agarwal from Chandni Chowk and ex-IAS officer and ex-BJP leader Udit Raj from the North West seat.
“Kanhaiya Kumar is a very strong candidate in Delhi and will defeat the BJP candidate in the North East seat. The focus now would be on joint campaigning and the INDIA alliance will win all the seven seats in Delhi,” AICC general secretary in charge of Delhi Dipak Babaria told ETV Bharat.
Former MP Sandeep Dikshit was also being considered by the party from the Chandni Chowk seat while veteran Raj Kumar Chauhan was being considered from the North West seat, said party insiders. Sandeep, the son of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit, had been a strong critic of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal but was the first to come out in his support when the AAP founder was recently arrested in the liquor scam.
“The goal of the INDIA alliance is to defeat the BJP,” JP Aggarwal told ETV Bharat.
