Kanhaiya Kumar may contest 2019 Lok Sabha elections as Mahagathbandhan candidate

Former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students union president Kanhaiya Kumar is reportedly preparing to contest 2019 Lok Sabha elections. According to a report in Prabhat Khabar, Kanhaiya Kumar is expected to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Begusarai in Bihar as a candidate of the Mahagathbandhan, comprising Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, Left and some other smaller parties.

While Kanhaiya Kumar is officially expected to contest the elections on a CPM ticket, he will be fielded under the banner of Mahagathbandhan, as a joint candidate.

Notably, Kanhaiya Kumar is facing a sedition case. The JNU administration had also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on him over the 2016 event in the campus where alleged anti-India slogans were raised and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was lauded.

The fine on the former JNUSU president was imposed by a high-level JNU panel after a thorough investigation in this regard.

However, the Delhi High Court in July set aside the move by the university administration, terming it as “illegal, irrational and irregular”. The High Court had asked the university to wait on the matter until a proper decision was taken by the court. It had directed JNU to not take any action against Kumar in connection with the sedition case registered against him.

The high-level JNU probe panel found student-activist Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar and Anirban Bhattacharya guilty in the February 2016 incident wherein a group of students allegedly raised anti-national slogans.

The panel then recommended rustication of Khalid and imposition of financial penalty on 13 other students for violation of disciplinary norms on the campus.

Kumar, a member of the Communist Party of India's student's wing, was then president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union.

The three student-activists were accused - though none has been charge-sheeted by the police as yet - of raising slogans against national integrity during a poetry-reading gathering of students at the Sabarmati Dhaba on the campus on February 9, 2016.

The Delhi Police arrested Kumar on the campus a few days later and slapped sedition charges as Khalid and Bhattacharya along with three other students went into hiding.