Patna: JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar is more of a 'deshbhakt' (patriot) than BJP leaders who have dubbed him anti-national, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said today.
Nitish Kumar made the remarks after ending a two-day visit to Nepal, and a day after Kanhaiya Kumar was released after being in jail for 20 days on sedition charges.
The Janata Dal-United stalwart said the student leader, who is from Begusarai in Bihar, had been framed.
Nitish Kumar praised Kanhaiya's long speech at the JNU campus on Thursday night in which he attacked the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and raised issues of intolerance, hunger and poverty.
Nitish Kumar said the Modi government did not like the outspoken students of JNU who questioned the government's policies and raised issues that embarrassed it.
Student leaders like Kanhaiya Kumar will strengthen democracy in the country, the chief minister said.
The 29-year-old, who hails from Bihar, was arrested on February 12. Kanhaiya, the first president of the JNU Students Union from the CPI-affiliated AISF, was widely denounced, more so after he was beaten up in a Delhi court on two days by some lawyers.
