Nitish Kumar’s anti-Modi posturing while remaining firmly in the NDA as a long-standing ally of the BJP reeks of hypocrisy and deception. As a Minister in the NDA Government in 2002, Nitish Kumar never uttered a word against Modi or the Gujarat genocide. He has remained among the staunchest allies of the BJP for well over a decade.
On his watch as Bihar CM, feudal-communal forces have asserted themselves with the full patronage of the police and administration. The result has been a communal atrocity at Forbesganj and attacks on Dalit students by mobs following the death of Ranveer Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh with the approval of the police, and emergence of Darbhanga as the new centre of witch-hunt of innocent minorities in the name of investigating terror. Nitish Kumar himself gave the green signal for the feudal-communal assertion by winding up the Amir Das Commission that would have exposed the links of BJP-JDU leaders to Ranveer Sena, and backtracking on the agenda of land reform.
Nitish must stop insulting people’s intelligence and democratic sensibilities by claiming that Modi is communal while BJP and leaders like Advani are secular. Nitish Kumar owes an apology to the people of Bihar and the country for his long-standing and continuing alliance with communal forces. He must quit the NDA and apologise for his opportunist support of communal forces before he can make any claim to be anti-communal.
Dipankar Bhattacharya
General Secretary,
CPI(ML)
