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Pavan K Varma, a senior leader of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United on Tuesday, asked the Bihar Chief Minister to explain the reasons why the party allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party for the Delhi election when even its long-standing allies such as the Akali Dal had refused to do so.
In a two-page letter to boss Nitish Kumar that was also put out on Twitter, Pavan K Varma also quoted from their private conversations where the chief minister had been severely critical about the BJP and underscored that he had been unable to reconcile the line advocated by the JDU constitution, Kumar’s private feelings and the party’s actions in public.
“Politics, as you have emphasized to us, must be about principle and the courage of conviction,” Varma, the JDU national general secretary and national spokesperson, said.
ALSO WATCH | Nationwide NRC not needed, says Bihar CM Nitish amid Opposition protests
The trigger for Tuesday’s sharply-worded letter appeared to be the JDU tie-up with the BJP in Delhi announced a day earlier. As part of this pact, the JDU would get to contest on 2 seats in the 8 February elections.
Verma said the alliance, the first between the two parties outside Bihar, had “deeply perplexed” him and he was looking for “ideological clarity”.
Pavan K Varma has been one of the few JDU leaders to speak against his party’s stand on the amended citizenship law that enables the government to give citizenship to non-Muslims from pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Political strategist and party vice president Prashant Kishor is another.
Varma recalled Nitish Kumar’s strong views about the BJP and its politics back in 2012 and later. .
He wrote: “However, the cause for confusion arises from the fact that even after you changed tracks and aligned again with the BJP in 2017, your private apprehensions regarding the BJP did not change.”
“For instance, I remember your confessing to me in private how the current leadership in the BJP party has humiliated you. You maintained, on more than one occasion, that the BJP is leading India into a ‘dangerous space’. It was your personal view, as conveyed to me, that the BJP is destroying institutions, and that there is a need for democratic and socialiust forces within the country to regroup, a task for which you actually assigned a senior party official,” Varma said.
Varma said if these were his “real views”, he couldn’t understand how the JDU was extending its alliance with the BJP beyond Bihar when even long standing allies of the BJP, like the Akali Dal, have refused to do so.
“This is especially so at a time when the BJP, through the CAA-NPR-NRC combine, has embarked on a massive socially divisive agenda, aimed at mutilating the peace, harmony and stability of the country,” the letter, written against the backdrop of protests over the amended citizenship law and citizens’ register, said.
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