Kanhaiya Kumar to launch CPI’s 15-day anti-BJP campaign tomorrow

PATNA: Former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who is tipped to contest the 2019 parliamentary elections from Begusarai, will launch the fortnight-long campaign of CPI in the state on Tuesday. The campaign will culminate in a ‘Defeat BJP, save country’ rally in Patna on October 25. The CPI has also decided to invite Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders to address the rally.

CPI national secretary K Narayana and state secretary Satya Narayan Singh said general secretaries of CPI, CPI (M) and CPI (ML) – Sudhakar Reddy, Sitaram Yechury and Dipankar Bhattacharya, respectively – would address the Patna rally. “It will be one of the biggest rallies that our party has organised so far in the state,” Singh said.

Others from outside the Left who are likely to address the CPI rally are former Union minister Sharad Yadav, leader of opposition in the Bihar assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) chief and former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi.

Rebel BJP MP from Patna Saheb Shatrughan Sinha has already gone on record saying that if CPI invites him to campaign for Kanhaiya during the elections, he will willingly oblige.

Singh said actor Shabana Azmi, her husband Javed Akhtar and cine star-cum-rationalist from south Prakash Raj have also volunteered to campaign for Kanhaiya.

However, both Narayana and Singh clarified that only the party’s national executive committee will take a final call on Kanhaiya’s candidature for Begusarai.

Meanwhile, Gujarat MLA and emerging scheduled caste face Jignesh Mevani will address two rallies of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe groups – first one at Bakhri in Begusarai district on October 11 and the second one at Uda Kishanganj in Madhepura district on October 12.

Kanhaiya will conduct intensive weeklong campaign in the assembly segments of the Begusarai parliamentary constituency from October 15. He will also hold road shows and address public rallies at Motihari, Khagaria and Maliabad, CPI state secretary Satya Narayan Singh said

In Patna, Kanhaiya will hold road shows and address meetings from October 22 to 25.