NEW DELHI: An internal split within the Communist Party of India (CPI) over promoting Kanhaiya Kumar at the national level may have triggered the former student leader’s imminent exit from the party.
Party sources said that Kanhaiya, with his fiery speeches and connect with the Hindi heartland, had come to be regarded as a crowd-puller at public rallies, a factor that had also led to some consternation in the top echelons of the Communist party.
While some said Kanhaiya felt slighted by the party’s Bihar leadership (backed by some national leaders), his desire for a more prominent role in the party put him at loggerheads with the leadership, which maintained that ideology, not individuals, matters in the party.
While party sources acknowledged that Kanhaiya was successfully deployed to address rallies across the country, his exit is unlikely to impact the party significantly because of its cadre base and emphasis on ideology. “CPI is a party that emphasises on politics and ideology rather than individual. So Kanhaiya’s departure may only be a temporary setback, not a permanent one,” a leader said, citing the past instance of farmer leader and CPI stalwart Yogendra Sharma being suspended from the party without significant impact.
While party chief D Raja did not comment, another leader said Kanhaiya’s exit will show he has “compromised with his ideology” and taken the “opportunist way out” of CPI.
