Amid Air-India 'Pee Gate', BJP reminds Congress' Kanhaiya Kumar of 2015 'urination in JNU campus' incident

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New Delhi: Amid the furore over urinating incident in an Air India flight, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was prompted to criticise the Congress over a somewhat related controversy by party leader Kanhaiya Kumar back in 2015, when he was a student at Jawaharlal University. Amit Malviya, the leader of the BJP, criticised the venerable party for its "second-most popular" politician being accused of urinating in public.

BJP leader Malviya tweeted, “Since we are in the middle of a #PeeGate, let’s not forget, Kanhaiya Kumar, the second most popular Congress leader, after Rahul Gandhi (as declared by Jairam Ramesh), was accused of peeing in open on campus and flashing when asked not to. The Congress has such talent in its ranks”.

Since we are in the middle of a PeeGate, let’s not forget, Kanhaiya Kumar, second most popular Congress leader, after Rahul Gandhi (as declared by Jairam Ramesh), was accused of peeing in open on campus and flashing when asked not to.

The Congress has such talent in its ranks.  Amit Malviya (amitmalviya) January 7, 2023

The event happened in 2015 before Kumar became the head of the student organisation. The Congress leader was allegedly seen urinating in public, but when a former female JNU student approached him, he "misbehaved with her and threatened her." The former student provided an unsigned letter from the JNU's top proctor to support her assertions that Kumar was a "fake revolutionary."

Later, the authorities verified that Kanhaiya had received a fine for the incident. The All India Students' Federation (AISF), the organisation Kumar then represented, however, denied the accusations and described them as an effort to harm his reputation.

In order to "defend the idea of India" in "this moment of urgency," the former head of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and president of the JNU Students' Union joined the Congress in 2021. Before Rahul Gandhi, Kumar was referred to be "the second-most popular politician" in the Congress by MP Jairam Ramesh.