Youth icon Kanhaiya Kumar holds Congress hand

One February night in 2016, the then JNU students union president was at one of the usual protest meets at the varsity's famed Ganga dhaba. A few moments later he shot into the national imagination.

Kanhaiya Kumar became a household name instantly... arrested and charged with Sedition with his other comrades over alleged anti-national slogans at the JNU protest...

Opinions were polarised. While rights activists, liberals, academia rallied behind the student leader... the supporters of the government, and a section of the media assailed him as an enemy of the state...

Some loved him and others hated him, but no one could ignore him...

As he walked out of Delhi's Tihar Jail after 21 days, Kanhaiya was a political star...

TV debates to public meetings to protests, the boy from Begusarai became the face of resistance against the Modi govt and prevalent intolerance...

His speeches and arguments, laced with earthy wit and sarcasm went viral...

For those who loved him, he became their voice, their big hope.

His opponents tried to drag him down on every step of the way with slander, abuse and nasty labels.

But labels couldn't stop him...

Born in a poor family in Bihar's Begusarai... Kanhaiya embodied the audacity of education... he looked powerful in the eye and spoke without fear...

Being from Begusarai, know as the Leningrad of Bihar, communism, rebellion and politics ran in his blood...

No wonder he found his political calling there...

But the meteoric rise of the young comrade met his waterloo in 2019 Lok Sabha elections...

Kanhaiya contested Begursarai on the CPI ticket, but lost to BJP heavyweight Girira Singh in a high voltage election...

Even the campaign was novel and unique where Kanhaiya raised 70 lakhs through crowd-funding.

Several popular figures from films and activism world campaigned aggressively for him..
but in the end real politik won over his idealism...

Kanhaiya who was seen and heard everywhere for the last three years, was heartbroken and went into a self-imposed isolation after the election defeat...

There were reports of his tiff with senior Left leaders over his election funding...

Kanhaiya's vanishing act from public scene left many confused...

Reports said that all this while he was working on building his base in Begusarai for future political battles and also took a part-time teaching assignment at a college there...
Now, Kanhaiya is back where he belongs... in the heat and dust of politics...after a break...In a new avataar...

For Kanhaiya, Politics abhi baaqi mere dost...