The student leader from Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Kanhaiya Kumar, has accused the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) of trying to replace Mahatma Gandhi as a national icon.
At a media interaction organized by the Press Club of Bengaluru, when a journalist asked Kanhaiya about omitting Baapu and putting PM Modi in the calendar and diary by Khadi Village Industries Commission recently, he replied,”The right wing parties can never appropriate Gandhi as they never believed in their ideology. Their prime motto is to replace Gandhi with their ideologue. They will first try to appropriate him and then replace him.”
“They would appropriate Bhagat Singh and Baba Saheb Ambedkar, but they can’t. They don’t believe in their ideologies too. While Bhagat Singh was an atheist, Ambedkar was up against Manusmriti,” he added.
When asked about joining a political party he said he told that he is not in a mood to do so. He said,”i’m an academic and I will prefer to teach.”
He also criticised PM Modi once again. He said,”You can’t say the Prime Minister is equal to the nation. Criticising the government is not sedition.”
In 2016, Kanhaiya along with two JNU Students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, was accused of shouting anti-national slogans during an event in the University and were charged with sedition charges.
