Kanhaiya Kumar will campaign for CPI candidate Mohd Muhsin in Kerala.
JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who had earlier ruled out campaigning in the West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls, has now decided to campaign for a fellow JNU student who is in the fray for the May 16 elections in Kerala.
Mr Kumar said he decided to join the campaign after
Mohd Muhsin, CPI candidate for Pattambi seat in Palakkad, mooted the idea. "He has stood by me, so I decided to hit the campaign trail," Mr Kumar said.
Muhsin is a student at JNU's School of Social Science. He is also the Vice President of JNU unit of All India Students Federation (AISF), the student wing of Communist Party of India (CPI).
Mr Kumar, who is the first AISF member to be elected JNU Students' Union president, was arrested in February in a sedition case over an event on JNU campus against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.
Muhsin, was among those who led the agitation for Mr Kumar's release.
"I still maintain that mainstream politics is not my calling and I have no intention of joining it. I still plan to stick to my goal of being a teacher but with Muhsin it was different. He has stood by JNU, stood by me all the time, I couldn't refuse him," Mr Kumar said.
"And not only me but the entire AISF unit of JNU will support him. Besides, the JNU unit of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) will also travel to Kerala to campaign for him," he added.
Asked about the campaigning schedule, Muhsin told PTI over phone from Kerala, "Kanhaiya along with the IPTA group and JNU students is expected to be here in the second week of May. He also plans to go to Patna before that where he will address a public meeting. He may also visit his family during the same trip."
After the speech delivered by Mr Kumar on his return to JNU campus from jail, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury had said the student leader would be campaigning for Left parties in the Assembly polls.
However, he later stated that Mr Kumar will not travel to Kerala and West Bengal to campaign citing the bail conditions and other issues. Mr Kumar too had ruled out campaigning, saying mainstream politics is not his calling.
Mr Kumar had campaigned in south Delhi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and in Begusarai, when his home state Bihar voted last year.