Varma joined TMC in November 2021. In January 2020, he was expelled from JD(U) over his open criticism of Nitish Kumar’s support for the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.
New Delhi: Ten months after joining the Trinamool Congress, Pavan K. Varma announced on Twitter on August 12 that he is resigning from the party.
A former veteran of the Janata Dal (United), Varma’s exit from the party he joined in November 2021 has led to speculation that he could be rejoining the Nitish Kumar-led party.
Dear @MamataOfficial ji, Please accept my resignation from the @AITCofficial. I want to thank you for the warm welcome accorded to me, and for your affection and courtesies. I look forward to remaining in touch. Wishing you all the best, and with warm regards, Pavan K. Varma
Addressing Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal chief minister and TMC’s chief, Varma wrote, “I want to thank you for the warm welcome accorded to me, and for your affection and courtesies. I look forward to remaining in touch.”
Days ago, Kumar broke away from the National Democratic Alliance – where JD(U)’s presence was believed to have been a bone of contention between the two leaders.
In the expulsion letter, party’s chief general secretary K.C. Tyagi had accused Varma and poll strategist Prashant Kishor of violating party discipline and its decision.
Tyagi had written in the letter then that Kumar had given more respect to Varma than he deserves. “Instead of respecting the honour he got from the party and submitting himself to it, he deluded himself into thinking that the party had no choice,” he wrote.
Even while sharing the dais with BJP brass, Nitish has never joined the party in delegitimising the nationwide protests against CAA, NRC and NPR.
Patna: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is currently at the centre of a storm, battling allegations that he has compromised on his socialist and secular ideology to maintain the alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party for the Delhi Assembly polls, or his ambivalence on the Citizenship Amendment Act.
While this may largely be the opinion of analysts who observe the Centre rather closely, those in Bihar, however, can’t discount the particular political quandary Kumar currently faces.
After his expulsion from the Janata Dal (United) in the wake of sending a letter in which he revealed Nitish’s “apprehension” about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-BJP in a “private conversation” on “more than one occasion” to him, the former diplomat and author, Pavan K. Varma has since sharpened his critique of Nitish’s “ideological drift”.
Those who know Nitish for quite some time know it well that the brand of socialism as propounded by Ram Manohar Lohia and secularism as enshrined in the Indian constitution have a distinct place in Nitish’s heart.
Varma didn’t actually make any staggering revelations when he said that Nitish had expressed “apprehension” about the RSS-BJP in private conversations.
Nitish might well have shared his personal opinion on Hindutva with many other personal acquaintances. Otherwise a reserved person, known for his economy of words, Nitish has the proclivity to talk his heart out in private conversations.
It thus perhaps didn’t bother Nitish at all when Varma – even while he was the JD(U)’s general secretary – attacked the RSS-BJP’s insidiously divisive Hindutva agenda. What stung Nitish was Varma’s “revelation” of the content that Nitish, purportedly, shared in private conversation.
The point to be noticed here is Nitish didn’t deny the “revealed content”. He simply said, “I can never reveal what Varma has told to me in private conversation. Private conversations are not brought in the public realm”.
It is a fact that Nitish Kumar had given a call for “Sangh mukt Bharat” when he was with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress. It is also a fact that he had stated that he would prefer to be broken into smithereens rather than return to BJP. He has strongly questioned Narendra Modi on the issue of secularism and the idea of India.
Nitish and Modi. Photo: PTI
If one carefully decodes the journey of Nitish’s speeches and statements, one will find very easily that Nitish has never given a clean chit to Narendra Modi despite sharing the dais with him on several occasions. He is seldom in tune with the BJP, despite returning to the NDA in 2017.
Nitish is a rare politician who has effectively mastered the art of keeping his person and his politics separate.
When he broke out from the NDA, he had doggedly attempted to unite the opposition to the extent that he was the strongest votary of the six old Janata Parivar factions merger. It’s not out of the way to think that Nitish, who had staged a comeback as the Bihar chief minister after defeating the resurgent BJP in 2015, might have harboured the ambition to emerge a rallying point of opposition unity against the BJP.
Somehow, his efforts didn’t work and he returned to the NDA despite all his “reservations” and “apprehensions”. But now, he is faced with the challenge to retain his position as the chief minister of Bihar while also retaining his supremacy against the BJP, his ally in the state.
Nitish must wage wars on two fronts at a time — against his ideological adversary and political ally, BJP, and against the political opponents and ideological mates that the RJD-Congress are to him.
Even in such a situation, Nitish has rejected the NRC, has asked the prime minister to drop the six new questions in the NPR and has left it to the Supreme Court decide on the CAA’s constitutional validity despite supporting it in the parliament.
He has never joined the BJP in delegitimising the nationwide protests going on against CAA, NRC and NPR. Rather, he admonished his administration for detaining CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar near Gandhi Ashram at Bhittiharwa in Bihar’s West Champaran district and said, “The people have the right to protest”.
He shared the dais with Union home minister Amit Shah in Delhi on February 2 to campaign for a party candidate contesting on a solitary seat in alliance with the BJP. He showcased his government’s achievements in Bihar and attacked Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, as a political rival should do. But he neither joined in with BJP leaders’ tirade that Arvind Kejriwal was a “terrorist” or “anti-national”. Nor did he speak against Shaheen Bagh.
In his latest interview to The Wire, the eminent academic and profound political thinker Pratap Bhanu Mehta said to Karan Thapar, “It is not important who replaces Narendra Modi as next PM. What is important is how Indian society reeling under repeated shocks from majoritarian dispensation will be rebuilt and resurrected by whosoever replaces Modi as the PM”.
If Mehta’s observations are seen in the context of Bihar, Nitish’s successor will not inherit as pulverised or broken a Bihar as Adityanath’s successor will, in Uttar Pradesh.
There are few instances of communal disharmony and police excesses on protesters in Bihar and even the BJP leaders — despite their alliance with Nitish — don’t have the temerity to hoodwink Muslims or question their patriotism in the state.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist and co-author of the book Gopalganj to Raisina: My Political Journey, Lalu Prasad’s autobiography.
Varma has recently been critical of Nitish’s stance on the CAA. He also did not favour JD(U) decision to tie up with BJP for the Delhi polls.
New Delhi: Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar minced no words while hitting out at his colleague and senior party leader Pavan Varma, who has criticised the party’s move to support the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.
On Thursday, when asked about Varma questioning the logic behind JD(U) allying with the BJP even in Delhi for the upcoming assembly elections, Kumar said, “He is free to go and join any party he likes, my best wishes.”
“Our stand is clear, no confusion. If anyone has any issues, then the person can discuss it within party or at party meetings, but to give such public statements is surprising. Is this a way to talk?” he added.
Known for his short but clear statements, Kumar, who leads the JD(U)-BJP coalition government in Bihar, clearly indicated that he will brook no such public criticisms of the party, from within the party, anymore.
Apart from Varma, party’s vice-president Prashant Kishore and many senior leaders of the party, including another national general secretary Gulam Rasool Balyawi had also expressed their discomfort against Kumar’s decision to support the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Parliament, which they feel has to be seen in conjunction with the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).
According to these leaders, Kumar has assured them that he will not allow NRC to be implemented in Bihar. However, Varma came out publicly to question JD(U)’s alliance with the saffron party in Delhi, especially at a time when protests over CAA-NRC has only been growing across the country, including in Bihar.
Varma, a former Rajya Sabha MP and party’s national general secretary, had tweeted a letter to Nitish Kumar two days ago to express his anguish and anxiety over the alliance. He spoke about a conversation in which Kumar had expressed “grave apprehensions” about the BJP and its ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He had asked the party chief to “harmonise” the party’s private and public positions.
This is the letter I have written to @NitishKumar 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. pic.twitter.com/ErSynnuiYm
“On more than one occasion, you have expressed your grave apprehensions about the BJP-RSS combine. If these are your real views, I fail to understand how the JDU is now 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 social divisive agenda aimed at mutilating the peace, harmony and stability of the country,” Varma wrote.
He also spoke of his first meeting with Kumar in 2012 where he spoke “at length and with conviction on why Narendra Modi and his policies are inimical for the country.” He also reminded Kumar of his election call for an “RSS-mukt Bharat (RSS-free India)”.
He also said that when Kumar revived his alliance with BJP in 2017 after dumping Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress, with which he had contested the assembly elections together, the BJP leadership had subjected him to humiliation.
In the last few months, however, Kumar has hinted at the possibility of JD(U) joining the Union government. The party has already become a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. His adamant stance on CAA indicates that his word on the issue may be the final one in the party.
Responding to him, Varma said, “(Leaving) is an option that everyone has and I know it. It was never my intention to hurt him.” He added that he welcomed Kumar’s rebuke as his statement hints at the further possibility of a discussion within the party.
Varma’s objections to CAA-NRC
Speaking to The Wirein December, Varma said that his position in JD(U) was “irrevocably untenable” after he publicly criticised his party’s support to CAB in the parliament. And that he “would like to devote the next few years” and all his “political energy to create a sane and credible alternative in this country at the political level.”
“This country needs choice which is congruent with what the country’s good is. I will work towards that end,” he had asserted.
“The party can remove me or I can remove myself from the party,” he had said.
“Yes, we are in an alliance with the BJP in Bihar. Yes, the government in Bihar is a coalition. Yes, perhaps the BJP and the JD(U) need each other to fight the elections next year when the assembly elections are due. But at the same time, the JD(U), and specially Mr. Nitish Kumar has been a leader who on specific issues, even while in an alliance with the BJP, has taken a strong position of differing, of saying that we are allies but we don’t agree.”
He had gone on to speak about JD(U)’s objection to “the manner in which Article 370 was rammed through in the parliament.”
“There are issues on which we protest. Particularly, for instance, when there are overt communal voices in the BJP, we come out against them,” he had said.
He had also said that he was deeply anguished by the fact that Kumar, despite his private objections to CAA and NRC, had gone ahead to support the CAB in Rajya Sabha. He felt that JD (U) preferred political expediency and “possible political dividend to the far more fundamental pursuit of ideological chastity.”
“To my mind that is unacceptable. It is against our party constitution. In the very first page of our constitution, the word secular occurs three times. Nitish Kumar himself has always stood multiple times against attempts to divide the society on the basis of dharm and majhab and religion,” he had said, adding that even in the case of CAB, Kumar has made his concerns about CAB public.
“Nitish Kumar was very sensitive to the concerns in the northeast (against CAB), for that (northeastern) identity to be preserved, and not to be swamped,” he said.
“What happened to all of that? The northeast is in flames. My point is if you are willing to jettison ideology on the altar of political expediency, somewhere you are on the wrong track,” he had said, adding that there seemed to be “a lack of ideological clarity” in his party.
