New Delhi: Kanhaiya Kumar, who is a new and popular face in the Congress, has been allegedly attacked with a chemical at the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) office on Tuesday. JNU alumnus Kumar was at the UPCC office addressing a 'Yuva Sansad' organised by the party according to a PTI report.
However, the accused was caught by the party office bearers before any damage was done, they said.
A Congress leader on the condition of anonymity said the youth was identified as Devansh Bajpai and he tried to throw the chemical at Kumar but was caught by the office bearers of the Youth Congress and the NSUI.
Congressmen were quick to allege that the youth had poured acid on Kanhaiya’s face, however, the police said it appeared to be ink, as per the Times of India report. Seen as a star campaigner for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Kumar was trying to campaign for various candidates.
Not deterred by the incident Kumar attended the programme as planned. "BJP is behaving the way East India Company did in pre-independent India. Congress will oust them the way the grand old party sent the British back,” he said, according to the report. However, he didn’t make any mention of the incident.
As per the police quoted in the TOI report, Devansh didn’t belong to any political outfit and was pursuing LLB from an LU-affiliated college in Malihabad. However, Congress workers alleged Devansh was a member of BJP’s student body – Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
Former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar joined the Congress in 2021. Earlier, he had joined the CPI before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and contested on a CPI ticket from Begusarai against BJP's Giriraj Singh but lost. Earlier he was president of the JNU Students Union and was jailed over alleged "anti-national slogans".