NewDelhi/Nagpur: NU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today, their first meeting since the former’s arrest and imprisonment over sedition. Kanhaiya was accompanied by a delegation from the JNUSU and Left-backed All India Students’ Federation (AISF).
JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today, their first meeting since the former’s arrest and imprisonment over sedition. Kanhaiya was accompanied by a delegation from the JNUSU and Left-backed All India Students’ Federation (AISF).
While the details of the meeting are not known, both Rahul and Kanhaiya have been relentless in their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the BJP, for an alleged witch-hunt of political dissenters.
Shortly after Kanhaiya’s arrest last month, Rahul had attended a solidarity meeting at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus and demanded his release.
Kanhaiya is currently out on a six-month interim bail following his arrest over a controversial event held on JNU campus to mark the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
The Left has already announced that Kanhaiya will be campaigning for the party in forthcoming state elections in West Bengal and Kerala. While the Congress and the Left are bitter political adversaries in Kerala, they are trying to find a common ground to take on the Trinamool Congress and the BJP in West Bengal.
Last weekend, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had compared Kanhaiya to martyr Bhagat Singh , a remark that his party distanced itself from following criticism from the BJP.
“I don’t know what Tharoor said but no one can replace Bhagat Singh, especially the boys of this generation. Only one Bhagat Singh can be born in this country, and he is irreplaceable,” Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said.
Following the furore, Tharoor clarified that what he meant was the two men had certain qualities in common, “a fact which the BJP will never understand”.
