Patna/New Delhi: The political potboiler in the run-up to the Bihar Assembly polls later this year kicked off formally on Wednesday when Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar expelled senior party leaders Prashant Kishor and Pavan Varma on disciplinary grounds.
Both were quick to hit back, “thanking” Nitish Kumar for expelling them and hinting that he would do anything to retain the chief minister’s chair in Patna. The move comes a day after Prashant Kishor openly revolted against Mr Kumar and called him “a liar” for claiming that he was inducted into the JD(U) on the advice of Amit Shah.
There has been unease in the JD(U) after Mr Kishor and Mr Varma defied the party’s official stand on the issue of the CAA, NPR and NRC. On a number of occasions earlier, both leaders had urged chief minister Nitish Kumar to reconsider his decision to support the CAA.
Recently he had raised the political pitch by challenging home minister Amit Shah to implement CAA and NRC in the same “chronology” that he had earlier announced.
The differences deepened when recently Pavan Varma sought “ideological clarity” from Mr Kumar over the party’s alliance with the BJP in Delhi.
“I fail to understand how the party has formed an alliance for the Delhi elections given his (Nitish Kumar) own views on the BJP and the massive national outrage against the divisive CAA-NPR-NRC scheme”, Mr Varma said in a letter to the Bihar CM.
JD(U) leaders in Patna told this newspaper that a series of tweets and statements by both leaders were causing a dent in the NDA, which was preparing for the Bihar Assembly elections to be held later this year.
Mr Kishor, who was widely credited for Nitish Kumar’s return as chief minister for a third term, had joined the JD(U) in September 2018.
“Thank you, Nitish Kumar. My best wishes to you to retain the chair of Chief Minister of Bihar”, Mr Kishor said in a tweet soon after being expelled.
