Jignesh Mevani campaigns for Kanhaiya Kumar in Bihar
Patna: Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani, who had spearheaded a Dalit movement in his state a couple of years ago, Thursday campaigned for former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar the CPI candidate from Begusarai Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
The social media was abuzz with pictures of the two young politicians traversing the dusty tracks of Begusarai, sometimes on foot and sometimes pillion riding on bicycles, as they addressed several small political meetings seeking support for the upcoming Left leader.
Mevani also tweeted a picture of himself enjoying the traditional Bihari lunch of rice, lentil soup and mashed potatoes with the caption-- "Dal bhaat chokha khaenge, Kanhaiya Kumar ko jitayenge, theek hai", parodying a hit number of Bhojpuri singer Khesari Lal Yadav.
Mevani's canvassing for Kumar who is pitted against firebrand BJP leader Giriraj Singh is being seen as an attempt to garner Dalit support in favour of the upper caste CPI candidate in a caste-riven state like Bihar.
Both Kumar and Singh belong to the influential Bhumihar community which in the recent years have been more inclined towards the BJP though in Begusarai, they have been till a few decades ago supportive of the CPI which has sent many MLAs and MPs to the state assembly and parliament respectively from the district.
Kumar would need the support of Dalits in order to provide a credible challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, almost twice his age and armed with the saffron party's huge election machinery.
Moreover, Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) may end up making the contest tougher for the poll debutant as it plans to field a Muslim candidate from Begusarai, going back on its earlier stand of supporting Kumar's candidature.
Left sympathisers across the country have been keenly watching the electoral battle in Begusarai as a victory for Kumar could indicate that the moribund communist parties were showing signs of revival.
There have been reports that more than Rs 20 lakh have been raised in the former JNU student leader's favour through crowdfunding and Bollywood personalities Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi were likely to lend a whiff of glamour by taking part in his election campaign.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
