The crowdfunding campaign launched by former JNU students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar drew immense response with over Rs 10 lakh being collected in the first few hours. The campaign, launched on Tuesday in partnership with OurDemocracy, a crowdfunding platform, aims at collecting Rs 70 lakh.
Kumar is a candidate of the Communist Party of India at Begusarai in Bihar.
"In a country where a farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes, where unemployment is casting its darkest shadow in 45 years and the unemployed are deluded into a constructed binary of Hindu-Muslim conflict, it is now incumbent upon the common people to rise up and save democracy," Kumar said in his appeal to donate for his cause.
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The list of top donors, published on the campaign website, shows two people having contributed over Rs 50,000.
In Begusarai, Kumar will be facing BJP leader and Union minister Giriraj Singh.
Kumar stepped into limelight in February 2016 when he was arrested on charges of sedition after being accused of speaking against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
OurDemocracy is a New Delhi-based startup founded by Anand Mangnale. Besides Kumar, the firm is also working with Nana Patole of Congress and a few Aam Aadmi Party candidates including Atishi, Raghav Chadha and Dilip Pandey.