CPI leader and former JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar and Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani are set to join the Congress next week, party sources said. Mevani told a news agency that they would be joining the grand old party on September 28, 2021. Kumar had joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election and had unsuccessfully contested from Begusarai in Bihar against Giriraj Singh of the BJP.
Mevani, a Scheduled Caste leader and currently a legislator from the Vadgam constituency in Gujarat is the convener of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch (RDAM). He is a lawyer-activist and a former journalist. Mevani’s entry into the Congress comes at a time when it is wooing the Scheduled Castes after making one amongst them the chief minister of Punjab.
He had met with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently where this decision of joining Congress was taken. Sources said that Mevani will be made a working president of the party’s state unit Kanhaiya is likely to be given a bigger role in Bihar Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Mevani’s joining Congress shows that the party wants to bring more strong SC voices to the party. He had hailed the Congress decision to make a SC leader the Punjab CM. “It will have a tremendous impact amongst not just Dalits but all the subaltern masses. For Dalits, the move is not just brilliant but soothing too” he tweeted.
Sources in Congress said Rahul Gandhi wants to overhaul the Congress party by bringing more young and fresh faces to take on the BJP. Sources said that political strategist Prashant Kishore is instrumental in bringing both Kanhaiya and Mevani into party as part of strategy to counter the ruling BJP.