Unlikely to campaign for Bengal, Kerala polls, says Kanhaiya

JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who walked out of Tihar on bail last week where he was lodged in a sedition case, on Wednesday indicated that he is unlikely to campaign in the upcoming West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls.

“I have already said that mainstream politics is not my calling. I am a student and want to be a teacher after I finish my PhD. However, I will continue with activism even then.

“Two of my friends are still in jail, we have raised whole lot of issues ranging from Rohith Vemula case and now the Allahabad University row. There is so much to do for the students that it is unlikely for me to take that much time to travel for campaigning,” he said.

After an electrifying speech of Kanhaiya at JNU, the CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury had declared that Kanhaiya would be campaigning for Left parties in the Assembly polls.

However, he later stated that Kanhaiya will not travel to Kerala and Bengal to campaign citing the bail and other issues involved in making him poll campaigner. The 29-year-old research scholar also hit back at Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu who had said he was enjoying free publicity after his release from jail.