I am a big fan of Kanhaiya Kumar says Digvijaya Singh
Bhopal, Apr 29: Kanhaiya Kumar, Communist Party of India (CPI) contestant from Begusarai in Bihar, would be campaigning for Congress' Bhopal nominee Digvijaya Singh, who is pitted against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur in the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh.
Addressing a gathering at the CPI office here, Singh called himself an "admirer" of the former JNUSU president, and said that he was happy that Kumar would campaign for him on May 8-9.
Singh
also
sought
to
dispel
perception
that
Kumar's
arrival
might
rake
up
"tukde-tukde"
controversy
in
the
poll
season,
as
Thakur
is
viewed
as
a
polarising
figure.
He
blamed
the
BJP
and
the
Rashtriya
Swayamsevak
Sangh
(RSS)
for
"defaming"
Kumar
in
the
2016
Jawaharlal
Nehru
University
(JNU)
sloganeering
controversy.
"I am an admirer and a supporter of Kanhaiya Kumar. He has become an ideologue. I openly support him. I told my party that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has made a big mistake (by fielding its candidate in Begusarai). This seat (Begusarai) should have been allotted to the CPI," Singh said.
Kumar is contesting his maiden election against Union minister Giriraj Singh of the BJP in Begusarai.
"I challenge anybody who comes out saying that they (Kanhaiya and his associates) had raised the 'Tukde-Tukde' slogan (on the JNU campus in 2016). It was the work of the BJP and the RSS to defame Kumar and others who are fighting against fundamentalism," he alleged.
Singh claimed that "separation" of the Congress and Left parties was responsible for his party's defeat in 2014 general elections.
No word like 'Hindutva' in my dictionary, says Digvijaya Singh
"I believe that we (Congress) won again after UPA-I era because the Left was with us, but we got separated on a petty issue. The control over social and economic policies that existed during the UPA-I government (because of Left allies) was missing during the tenure of the UPA-II government, which was the reason for the Congress' defeat (in 2014)," he said.
Singh also took a dig at his political detractors in Madhya Pradesh Congress.
"After the Congress' defeat in the 2003 (assembly polls), it was said that my presence in the state would slash the party's vote share. However, I witnessed that the BJP was winning and the RSS becoming powerful over years whereas the Congress remained a silent spectator. This is the reason I decided to become active again," the former chief minister said.
He hailed the "help" extended by CPI leaders in defeating the BJP in the assembly elections held last year.
The contest for Bhopal, a BJP bastion since 1989, has become high profile since the saffron party fielded Thakur, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case.
Bhopal
goes
to
polls
on
May
12
in
the
sixth
phase
of
ongoing
Lok
Sabha
elections.
Voting
for
all
the
29
Lok
Sabha
seats
in
Madhya
Pradesh
would
be
held
in
four
phases
from
April
29
to
May
19.