News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 20th December 2024
The Janata Dal (United) accused Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on Friday of failing to represent Dalits and other backward groups, and claimed that a corrupt leader had no right to advise Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The assault on the former Delhi chief minister by two prominent JD(U) leaders, Union ministers Lalan Singh and Sanjay Jha, came a day after Kejriwal penned a letter to Kumar urging him to “deeply reflect” on Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s alleged disparaging remarks about B R Ambedkar.
Kejriwal wrote an identical letter to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, another major BJP ally. Jha reacted to the AAP leader by stating that he did not send a single leader from the Dalit and backward castes to the Rajya Sabha and accused him of breaking his pledge to select a Dalit deputy chief minister for Punjab.
Jha questioned if the AAP leader could not find someone from these castes to succeed him as Delhi chief minister when he resigned, citing Kumar’s appointment of Dalit politician Jitan Ram Manjhi in 2014.Kejriwal has ties to an organization renowned for its anti-reservation stance, has allied with the Congress despite vowing never to do so, and despises people from Bihar and poorvanchal, as seen by their poor living circumstances in the national capital, he claimed.
Singh told reporters that Kejriwal had no right to question the JD(U) president and lashed out at him for his imprisonment in a corruption case after joining politics through an anti-corruption campaign led by veteran activist Anna Hazare. He subsequently abandoned Hazare, the Union minister claimed, adding, “A corrupt person has no right to advise Nitish Kumar, who was a Union minister and is now the chief minister for so many years and has never been accused of any misconduct.” Sharing the letters on X, Kejriwal stated that those who respect Ambedkar cannot support the BJP, which had “insulted” the architect of India’s Constitution, and urged Kumar and Naidu to think about it.
Shah’s remark on Babasaheb was not only “disrespectful” but also revealed the BJP’s perspective towards him and the Constitution, the AAP leader said in the letters to the two chief ministers.
“The statement made by Shah in Parliament regarding Babasaheb has left the entire nation stunned. His remark that ‘chanting Ambedkar-Ambedkar has become a fashion these days’ is not only disrespectful but also reveals the BJP’s perspective towards Babasaheb and our Constitution,” Kejriwal wrote.
JD(U) leaders strongly defended Shah, saying he only exposed the Congress’ insult of Ambedkar, an iconic figure, especially among Dalits.
“The home minister threw light on those pages of history which you and the leader of your alliance Rahul Gandhi do not want to see. Shah told the country as to how a hurt Ambedkar had to resign from Nehru’s Cabinet due to neglect of Dalits and women. I can understand that you and your alliance leader Rahul Gandhi would not have liked such a discussion at all,” Jha wrote in the letter.
