Bihar YouTuber Manish Kashyap, previously arrested for allegedly circulating fake videos depicting migrants from Bihar facing harassment in Tamil Nadu, officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday.
Currently out on bail, Kashyap’s induction into the BJP took place in the presence of Anil Baluni, the party’s national media department in-charge, co-in-charge Sanjay Mayukh, and BJP’s North East Delhi candidate Manoj Tiwari. Kashyap’s mother also attended the joining ceremony held in the national capital.
“I have joined the BJP to work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. My mother, who fought for me when I was in jail for nine months, asked me to join the BJP,” Kashyap told reporters.
Tiwari assured Kashyap that the BJP would acknowledge and respect him “in the future”, based on his capabilities.
Who is Manish Kashyap?
Kashyap, an influential YouTuber boasting over 8 million followers on the platform, has frequently voiced support for Modi and has been candid about his political aspirations. He has often criticized Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashvi Yadav and previously contested assembly elections without success.
Kashyap, a civil engineering graduate from a Pune college in 2016, launched his YouTube channel, ‘Sach Tak News’, in 2018. He entered the political arena by contesting elections from the Chanpatia Assembly segment in West Champaran in 2020, securing over 9,200 votes.
Cases against Manish Kashyap
However, Kashyap’s journey has been marred by legal entanglements. In 2019, he faced two arrests – first for purportedly defacing the statue of King Edward VII in Bettiah, and later for allegedly assaulting a Kashmiri shopkeeper in Patna’s Lhasa Market post the Pulwama attack. Bihar’s economic offences unit (EOU) and the Tamil Nadu police charged him under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code for inciting hostility between groups and communities, reports The Indian Express.
The West Champaran police had also seized his ancestral home in Majhaulia’s Dumri Mahanwa village in 2021 after purportedly threatening the then manager of the State Bank of India’s Paras Pakri branch.
By the time of his arrest last year, he had at least eleven cases registered against him since the inception of his YouTube channel in 2018. Among these, one of the most recent incidents involved attempting to pass off a 2019 arrest photo from another case as evidence of his detention in the fake migrant videos controversy.
With the Congress nominating Kanhaiya Kumar, also from Bihar, to contest against Tiwari in North East Delhi, there is a possibility that Kashyap might campaign for the BJP candidate. Both Kumar and Kashyap hail from the Bhumihar caste.
