JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar's AMU visit canceled after opposition from right-wing groups

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Aligarh: The proposed visit of JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar to Aligarh Muslim University on April 2 has been cancelled, as per a media report on Tuesday.

The visit was cancelled after protests by Hindutva groups and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

As per a report in The Hindu, Kumar was supposed to attend a convention on nationalism organised by AISA.

AISA is the student wing of CPI(ML).

The Daily quoted sources as saying that AMU administration had told the organisers that it wanted to avoid the "possible controversy as the right wing groups had been trying to create controversies with regard to the university and target it over baseless and completely false accusations".

"For now the convention on nationalism for which we had invited Comerade Kanhaiya, has been cancelled because we saw that ABVP and other Hindutva affiliated students groups had started targeting AMU on the pretext of his visit. Interestingly, we had not even fully made the plans for this event public but mere proposal for such an event gave rightwing groups an opportunity to make unconstitutional vigilantism," Mahfooz Alam, the convenor of AISA unit of AMU told The Hindu.

"Kanhaiya is a citizen of this country and can visit anyplace he wants. Who is ABVP or any other group to distribute certificate of nationalism to others in the country? This extra constitutional censorship by Hindutva groups, is an extremely dangerous trend," he added.

However, Alam added that AISA will organise the convention "later in future for which Kumar will be invited."

On the other hand, the Daily was told by university officials that no student had approached them for permission as yet.

Meanwhile, Nikhil Maheshwari, ABVP, said that his organisation will not allow Kumar to enter Aligarh.

"We are opposed to any event where Kanhaiya is invited," he said.

Amit Goswami, general secretary of student's group, Vishwa Vidyalaya Chhatra Sangh Morcha, also said, "It is an insult to Aligarh if an anti-national like Kanhaiya visits the city. We will ensure that he doesn't get entry in this city."

Hindu Jagaran Manch is also against Kumar coming to AMU.