For stronger roots in Bihar, Congress ropes in firebrand leader Kanhaiya

Former JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar joined the Congress on Tuesday (September 28) in the presence of Rahul Gandhi, saying the oldest party has to be strengthened to “save” the country. The Federal was the first to report about the firebrand leader’s plans to quit the Communist Party of India (CPI) and join the Congress. Here we are reproducing the earlier copy, published on September 16.

Here is the report:

Censured by his party, the Communist Party of India (CPI), in February this year and away from the political limelight ever since, former JNU students’ union president and fiery orator Kanhaiya Kumar is likely to join the Congress party soon. The 34-year-old CPI leader has, for now, scoffed at speculation of his joining the Grand Old Party. However, authoritative sources in the Congress have told The Federal that while at least one round of talks between Kumar and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the former’s imminent induction into the party has already taken place, another meeting is likely to take place next month.

The Congress’s plans to woo Kumar, a young albeit polarising political figure owing to his strident criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP as well as the events that shaped his student politics day at the Left citadel of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, into its fold had begun around the Bihar assembly polls of last year. Sources say while initial talks with the young leader had not yielded any breakthrough, what seems to have changed Kumar’s mind is the censure motion that the CPI passed against him at its national council meeting held in Hyderabad, in February. The CPI had reportedly taken exception to supporters of Kumar misbehaving with the party’s office secretary Indu Bhushan, in Patna, on December 1, 2020 and to some anti-party comments allegedly made by him.

Also read: Kanhaiya goes soft after CPI censures him, speculations over his next move

It is learnt that since the censure motion was passed against him, Kumar, the youngest member of the CPI’s national executive, had been weighing his political options. There was speculation earlier this year of Kumar planning to join Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United). The Congress, which has been struggling with its own internal turmoil and a crisis of attrition of young leaders in recent years, had continued to send feelers to Kumar. What seems to have helped Kumar warm up to the prospect of joining the Congress, in recent months, is the involvement of an independent legislator from Gujarat, who has also been a vocal critic of Modi, Gujarat Congress working president Hardik Patel as well as two Congressmen from Bihar who are part of the JNU alumni, in backchannel talks between the CPI leader and the Congress high command.

The Congress, in Bihar, is a fringe player and has been fighting to stay relevant with the help of its senior alliance partner, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Though Yadav and his clan, son Tejashwi Yadav in particular, share a strong personal rapport with the Congress high command – interim and former party presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, respectively and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra – they have periodically red-flagged the necessity for the Congress to revitalise itself. The Congress’s obtuse insistence on contesting 70 of the state’s 243 assembly seats in last year’s Bihar polls as part of the RJD-Congress-Left Front alliance and then being able to win just 19 of these – had cost Tejashwi his bid for replacing Nitish Kumar as the Bihar’s CM. The RJD-led Grand Alliance had won 110 seats, with the RJD emerging as the state’s single largest party with 75 seats, its Left Front allies – CPI, CPM, CPI (ML) – wresting another 16 seats and the Congress bagging 19 seats. However, the BJP-JDU combine stormed back to power with 125 seats and Nitish Kumar returned as the CM despite his JD(U) winning only 43 seats against the BJP’s 74 seats.

Kumar’s likely induction into the Congress, however, could become a sore point with the RJD. In the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the CPI had implored the RJD to let Kumar contest from the Begusarai seat as a Grand Alliance candidate. However, the talks failed after Lalu (who was still lodged in a Ranchi jail at the time for his conviction in a fodder scam case) and Tejashwi rejected the CPI’s demand on grounds that it already had a strong candidate for the Begusarai seat in Tanweer Hassan. The CPI went ahead and fielded Kumar from Begusarai, turning the fight into a triangular contest in which the BJP’s Giriraj Singh defeated the Left leader by a margin of over four lakh votes. It is not yet clear whether the Congress has discussed Kumar’s possible induction with the RJD or factored in whether Lalu and Tejashwi may feel slighted by their old ally trying to win over the young leader that the duo had so stridently tried to keep away from the Begusarai seat.

“The RJD is a trusted ally and everyone knows that the Congress high command has the highest regard for Lalu ji and his family but who we induct into our party, who we think is good for us, is a call that we have to take… we can’t be expected to take permission of other parties on this. Kumar is an educated leader who enjoys the support of the youth and everyone who wants to fight the BJP’s communal agenda. If there is a meeting of minds, what is the harm in him joining our party,” a Congress leader privy to the party’s discussions with Kumar told The Federal.

Of course, the Congress is also aware of the narrative that the BJP will, no doubt, try to spin if Kumar joins the Grand Old Party. Kumar’s past as a JNU Students’ Union leader was marred by the BJP routinely terming him an “anti-national” and part of the ‘Tukde Tukde Gang’. In 2016, while Kumar was the JNUSU president, he was arrested by the Delhi police along with other student leaders like Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya for allegedly chanting “anti-national” slogans at a poetry session organised by some students to mark the anniversary of the execution of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. The arrest had immediately catapulted Kumar and others to national headlines while the BJP and the Delhi police wanted them tried for sedition. Ever since, Kumar’s fiery speeches at the JNU campus, and outside it, against the alleged assault on fundamental rights, religious minorities and democratic values by the Modi regime have always attracted huge public attention.

Major revamp in Bihar Congress also on the cards

Kumar’s possible induction isn’t the only measure that the Congress is planning in the hope to breathe life into its listless organisation in Bihar. The Bihar Congress has largely been defunct since the party’s embarrassing performance in last year’s assembly polls. Sources say the party high command is likely to revamp the Bihar Congress unit soon and is keen that the incoming state chief ticks the right boxes in the state known for its caste-based politics.

Bhakt Charan Das, the Congress’s in-charge for Bihar, had last month prepared a list of potential candidates for the posts of Bihar Congress president and working presidents. Sources say Das was keen that the party nominate its two-term MLA from Kutumba in Aurangabad, Rajesh Ram, as the Bihar Congress chief along with seven to nine working presidents who represent different regions and the dominant castes of the state. While Das was on a visit to Manipur – he is also the party’s in-charge for the state – senior party leaders from Bihar and some AICC office bearers reportedly told the high command that Ram may not be a good choice to lead the party considering his lack of seniority.

Also read: In Bihar, BJP tries to corner Nitish by holding its own janata durbars

Interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is learnt to have then directed Das to give more names for possible nomination as Bihar Congress chief. Sources say, besides Ram, Das has now recommended names of former Lok Sabha Speaker and the party’s senior Dalit leader, Meira Kumar along with those of party general secretary Tariq Anwar and former Governor Nikhil Kumar.