4 min readNew DelhiMay 19, 2024 07:08 AM IST
First published on: May 19, 2024 at 05:27 AM IST
A day after he was attacked by two men, Congress’s Kanhaiya Kumar, the party’s Northeast Delhi constituency candidate, alleged that the attackers were supported by sitting MP Manoj Tiwari because the people were rejecting him.
Kumar is going up against Tiwari, a two-time BJP MP from the constituency and the only one from the party to have been repeated as the candidate.
In response to his allegations, Tiwari’s office hit back, “Kanhaiya is losing the elections so he has lost his mental balance… and is making baseless allegations. He does not have any support from his party to campaign… only his colleagues and college mates are helping him, so he now is coming up with these fables.”
Police registered a complaint in the matter, based on a complaint submitted by local councillor Chhaya Sharma. The incident happened on Friday outside the AAP office in the New Usmanpur area just as Kumar was coming out after a party meeting with Sharma. No arrests have been made yet.
At a press conference Saturday, Kumar said, “Yesterday, people supported by BJP and Manoj Tiwari attacked me… the BJP wants to impose dictatorship in the country, we have been saying this in our campaign, they use different tactics to silence this country’s opposition.”
Holding a copy of the Constitution in his hand, he added, “If they believe in democracy, in the Constitution, the courts… they should tell people about the work that they have done in the last 10 years. But instead of talking about their own work, they’re constantly lying, spreading doctored videos, and making an attempt to divert public opinions… the common people have been questioning him… he cannot answer these questions so he first tried to defame me and now he’s trying to scare me.”
He also alleged that there are photos of the attacker, Daksh Chaudhary, with Tiwari.
Kumar’s office also said on Saturday, “We have lodged a complaint with the Election Commission and Delhi Police. Brahmpuri pardi Chhaya Sharma ji has also lodged a complaint in this matter… There must be a battle of ideologies in a democracy, but thought is answered with thought and not with violence.”
After the incident on Friday, a man named Daksh Chaudhary shared a video on his Instagram page, on which he has 400,000 followers, and said, “We have not done this on the direction of any party, we have purely done this due to our nationalistic feeling, the person who had talked about splitting the country into pieces will receive such treatment.”
Another man called Annu Chaudhary also featured in the video and said, “He disrespected the Indian Army… people who will insult the nation will receive this treatment.”
On his Instagram account, Daksh describes himself as a “Gau Putra”, and has posted videos of him petting cows and attending events organised by BJP.
The two men were arrested by the Ghaziabad Police in February for allegedly entering Madina Masjid in Garima Garden while wearing shoes and abusing people who had come to offer namaz.
With regard to the case, a senior Ghaziabad police officer said, “The two accused have been granted bail (in this case). A chargesheet has been filed and the matter is pending in court. There are more cases, similar
in nature, including assault charges, against Annu.”
Cases registered against Annu are under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 295 (injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), police said.
Kanhaiya Kumar addresses the crowd after the incident. (Express File Phtoto) 
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