Kanhaiya Kumar is first expected to visit Bihar, where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has already hailed him as a rising star.
Highlights
- CPI rules out using JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar for poll campaigns
- Party wants him to focus on student politics and his case: CPI Sources
- Kanhaiya was arrested on sedition charges, is currently out on bail
Student leader Kanhaiya Kumar - whose recent arrest on sedition charges had forged a nationwide controversy -- should have a slow initiation into politics, the Communist Party of India or CPI has decided.
Mr Kumar -- JNU students' union president who belongs to a group affiliated to the CPI -- was expected to campaign for the Left parties in the coming assembly elections in Bengal and Kerala. There were expectations in some quarters that he would directly dive into electoral politics.
But on Monday, the CPI national executive which met in Hyderabad,
decided against a straight plunge into active politics for Mr Kumar -- thus ruling out using him directly for election campaigns.
Top sources in the CPI, however,
said the party was not going to waste Mr Kumar, who is seen as a promising young leader. "The party will use him as a force multiplier among students across various states," he said.
A leader said Mr Kumar is first expected to visit Bihar, where
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has already hailed him as a rising star.He will also visit the academic institutions that witnessed student unrest over the last few months - including the Hyderabad university, where the suicide of scholar Rohith Vemula had generated a huge political controversy.
Mr Kumar is also expected to visit IIT Madras, where students have been protesting since last May. A visit to other academic institutions which have witnessed student unrest -- like Pune film institute FTII, Kolkata's Jadhavpur Universiy and the Allahabad university are also on the cards.
"The party wants him to focus on student politics and the legal case that he faces," a leader said.