Delhi Polls: JD-U’s Pavan Varma asks his party to reconsider alliance over CAA protests

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 21

A day after talks over Shiromani Akali Dal’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party for Delhi elections broke down, a leader of another one BJP’s alliance partners—the Janata Dal (United)—has asked his party to reconsider the alliance.   

Senior leader Janata Dal (United) Pavan Varma has written to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar voicing his objection to his party’s alliance with the BJP over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act that the Parliament passed in December. 

Varma said in a tweet on Tuesday: “This is the letter I have written to Nitish Kumar today asking him how the JD (U) has formed an alliance with the BJP for the Delhi elections, given his own views on the BJP, and the massive national outrage against the divisive CAA-NPR-NRC scheme,” he said. 

The JD (U) is contesting two seats in alliance with the BJP. The development comes after SAD announced it was not going to contest Delhi Elections. SAD had attributed its decision to its objection to the central government’s decision to not include Muslims in the contentious law. 

There are massive nationwide protests against the law that have been ongoing since last month. The law offers Indian Citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis and Buddhists, but excludes Muslims—a decision that BJP’s critics have objected to. The critics argue that CAA, taken in conjunction with the contentious National Citizen Registry exercise that the central government had previously and repeatedly endorsed could be used to target the country’s Muslim population.

After facing backlash, the central government has claimed that the CAA had nothing to with the NRC exercise, but critics use statements by made ministers—in particular, those made by Home Minister Amit Shah—to claim that the two cannot be seen separately. 

Delhi is scheduled to vote for Assembly elections on February 8. Votes will be counted on February 11.