Kanhaiya Kumar calls for ‘rainbow coalition’ between Ambedkarites, Communistshttps://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/kanhaiya-kumar-calls-for-rainbow-coalition-between-ambedkarites-communists-3038318/

Kanhaiya Kumar calls for ‘rainbow coalition’ between Ambedkarites, Communists

Launching a tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kanhaiya said they were 'trying to convert the nation into a Hindu Rashtra'.

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Former president of JNU Kanhaiya Kumar participate in a programme of AISF at Ravindralaya Auditorium in Lucknow on Sunday. (Source: Express Photo by Pramod Adhikari)

Raising the slogan of “Jai Bhim-Lal Salaam”, former JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on Sunday pitched for a “rainbow coalition” of Ambedkarites and Communists and vowed to apprise people of the Centre’s “anti-people” policies in his first speech in poll-bound UP since the sedition case in February.

At a programme organised by the All India Students Federation in Lucknow’s Ravindralaya auditorium, Kumar said there was a fight going on between the followers of Bhimrao Ambedkar and RSS icon M S Golwalkar, adding that Ambedkar’s followers would emerge victorious.

Launching a tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Centre and the RSS, Kanhaiya said they were “trying to convert the nation into a Hindu Rashtra” and “ignoring the poor”. Nobody would have thought that the PM will one day “become a model to sell the SIM card of a particular company”, he added.

“Modiji, you are not the nation, Sangh is not the Parliament and the Manu Smriti is not the Constitution. We speak against you, Sangh and the Manu Smriti. We believe in the Constitution and Ambedkar. We believe in the nation of Ambedkar,” Kanhaiya said, adding that a 65-year-old could not become the leader of a young nation like India and most people do not believe in his “personality-centric” politics.


Referring to the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri over suspicion that he had stored beef, Kumar said that when India is filled with diversity, numerous languages and varied food habits, how can one ask the whole country to eat a particular thing. He said that Modi’s is the only government which says it will complete its policies in 2022 and not 2019 when its term gets over.

Kanhaiya said the government had failed to deliver on many of its promise. “He had promised to give employment to 2 crore people in a year, but could not provide anything. We will go to people with these anti-people actions. Be it the police, sedition, or hurling of shoes and tomatoes, nothing will be able to stop us,” he added, demanding unemployment allowance for those who are “not provided employment”.

Kanhaiya said the idea that election of a Dalit or a woman chief minister will lead to development of these sections or that an OBC leader’s government will lead to the progress of backward castes is also wrong.

He said that people need to form a “rainbow coalition” based on the ideas of thinkers like Ambedkar, Karl Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong to create a “Samatamulak Samaj”.

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CPI leader Dr Girish said that Kanhaiya’s second address, slated for Monday in Faizabad, is yet to get required permissions by the district administration. He added that Kumar will address audiences across the state in the coming days and though this is not part of the election campaign, it was a way of “enlightening people about the current political situation”.

Left parties, which have no significant presence in the state, are likely to contest about 200 assembly seats jointly.