Yesterday, Congress candidate and leader Kanhaiya Kumar was assaulted by some people with ink outside the AAP office in the New Usmanpur area of Shahdara, New Delhi. Kishore Kanhaiya attended a party meeting with the local councilor, Chhaya Sharma, in that area.
After he came out of his office, some people reportedly assaulted him after garlanding him and throwing ink at him during the confrontation.
The Assault on Kanhaiya Kumar
Chaaya Gaurav Sharma, the councillor registered a complaint which stated that ‘Some persons came and put garland around Kanhaiya Kumar. After garlanding him, some persons threw ink on Kanhaiya Kumar and tried to assault him. When Chhaya Sharma tried to intervene, they misbehaved and threatened her.’
She also said that some female supporters were also attacked in the confrontation in which one female journalist fell into the drain.
ये एक थप्पड़ भारतीय जनता पार्टी को दिल्ली में चुनाव हराने जा रहे हैं .@kanhaiyakumar चुनाव जीतेगे, अब ये देखना है ये कायर भाजपा के लोग एक मासूम बिहारी को और कितना मारते हैं ॥pic.twitter.com/qs8jtneYnU
— Abhishek Dutt (अभिषेक दत्त ) (@duttabhishek) May 17, 2024
The video of the assault on Kanhaiya Kumar also emerged on social media, which showed that the attackers said that Kanhaiya was going to get beaten. In the video, two youngsters—one with a black t-shirt—went close to the candidate in the hope of garlanding him, but instead, he garlanded the candidate and slapped the Congress leader. The other one threw ink at him.
Congress Leaders on the Assault
Kanhaiya Kumar’s team replied to the assault and criticized Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) MP Manoj Tiwari who said that he ordered the attack on Congress candidate Kanhaiya Kumar, as they gave the reason that the saffron party leader was afraid and jealous of Kumar’s growing popularity, and for this reason he sent his gangsters there to attack him.
Abhisekh Dutt, the Congress leader, also gave his statement on the attack on his official X page, which criticized the BJP party and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going to regret the slap as they will lose the elections and Kanhaiya Kumar will win the elections, but it will be seen how many more BJP candidates will cowardly attack this innocent Bihari man.
Interim Congress chief Devender Yadav confirmed that the party will report the matter to the Election Commission and said that the BJP party will do anything when the matter involves development and using minor tactics to disturb the development of the campaign.
KC Venugopal, the general secretary of Congress stated that ‘the BJP was resorting to its usual attitude of thuggery and violence in the face of a historic defeat’
The Reason Behind the Attack
A video was posted on the internet in which the assaulters said that they attacked Kumar because he raised a slogan, insulted the Indian army, and also said that the country would disintegrate. The attackers identified themselves as ‘Sanatani lions‘; the term Sanatana Dharma is used as an alternative to Hinduism by many BJP supporters. One of them is identified as Daksh Chaudhary.
The slogan was a reference to Kanhaiya Kumar’s claimed slogan, which raised the attention of the students and professors at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 2016 when Kumar was the president of the JNU Students’ Union.
The Congress party is contesting for three seats in the Indian capital as a part of the seat-sharing deal between the Congress and AAP parties; on the other hand, the Congress party selected candidates from constituencies in Delhi.
