The Congress on Sunday cleared the candidature of former JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar from Northeast Delhi.

Kumar, formerly with the CPI, is now the All India Congress Committee’s man in charge of the party students’ wing, the National Students Union of India.

He had been elbowed out of his home state of Bihar by Congress ally RJD, which unilaterally named candidates for seats Kumar might have contested.

With his Delhi candidature, the Congress is hoping to tap into the sizeable Bihari vote in Northeast Delhi.

Kumar had contested the last Lok Sabha elections as CPI candidate from Begusarai in Bihar and lost to rural development minister Giriraj Singh of the BJP.

The Congress has also selected the candidates for the two other seats it is contesting in Delhi as part of an electoral arrangement with the Aam Aadmi Party.

While Udit Raj will be the Congress candidate from Northwest Delhi, J.P. Aggarwal has been picked for Chandni Chowk, his traditional seat.

In all, the Congress on Sunday named candidates for 10 seats including Jalandhar, where it has fielded former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi.

Channi, who had been brought in to replace Amarinder Singh mid-term, had led the Congress’s unsuccessful campaign to retain Punjab in the 2022 Assembly elections.

Two recent entrants to the Congress, Dharamvir Gandhi from the AAP and Ujjwal Rewati Raman Singh from the Samajwadi Party, have also been given tickets.

Gandhi will be the party candidate from Patiala and Singh from Allahabad, which used to be represented by his father, Samajwadi leader Rewati Raman Singh.