New Delhi. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s key ally JD(U) leader K.C. Tyagi has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition government is completely safe and will easily complete its term and there is no threat to it from the opposition or allies. A few days after resigning from the post of Janata Dal (United) spokesperson, Tyagi said in a conversation with PTI editors that his stand has always been in line with the party’s ideology. Along with this, he expressed full confidence in the leadership of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
According to political commentators, his resignation from the post of party spokesperson was a result of his outspoken statements on various issues that made the government uncomfortable. Tyagi rejected the notion that many of his party colleagues were uncomfortable with his statements on issues such as the Israel-Hamas war and ‘lateral entry’ to senior government posts. He said that for him JD(U) means Nitish Kumar who is also the party president.
Tyagi, who has been active in socialist politics for over five decades, said, “I am in JD(U) only for Nitish Kumar. He is my friend and leader. (Only) his concerns matter to me.” He said he would never leave JD(U) and it was not in his nature to leave Kumar. Tyagi, however, appeared cautious about the party’s future beyond the leadership of Nitish Kumar (73). Unlike the rival Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), there is no clear second line of leadership in JD(U). In RJD, Tejashwi Yadav has been accepted as the political heir of his father Lalu Prasad. Lalu Prasad has been battling health problems for some time.
Tyagi asserted that no leader can match Nitish Kumar’s charisma. “There is no one like Nitish Kumar,” he said. He praised Nitish Kumar, Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister, for his honesty, lack of casteism and for bringing good governance to the state. “I have worked with Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad and many other socialists. There is no one like Nitish,” he said. Tyagi said he had been asking Nitish Kumar to relieve him from the spokesperson’s post for a long time, and the party president asked him to continue in his post as a political adviser.
He said his opposition to ‘lateral entry’ was in line with socialist politics and support for Palestine reflected India’s historical position. Tyagi was the only leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to sign a statement along with some opposition MPs and others, condemning Israel for the ‘genocide’ of Palestinians and asking India not to supply any kind of arms to Israel.
When asked about the Modi government’s third term, he said, “There is no threat to the government. It has no challenge from anywhere, neither from the opposition nor from its allies. It will complete its term.” The senior socialist leader also praised Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who were “democratically suitable” prime ministers for Indian democracy. Tyagi said Nehru had no hesitation in apologising for his mistakes, while Vajpayee first incited the leftists to protest and then used it to thwart the US effort to involve India in the Iraq war.
He also said that he was happy to see the Congress emerging as a strong opposition in the Lok Sabha elections. He said that this is good for democracy. However, Tyagi took a dig at the Congress and said that Rahul Gandhi is now advocating the interests of other backward classes, but his father Rajiv Gandhi had given a speech for more than two and a half hours in Parliament to oppose the VP Singh government’s decision to implement the Mandal Commission report.
On Nitish Kumar’s history of switching alliances, he said every party has joined hands with its opponents. He gave several examples, including the Congress going with the DMK and the BJP joining hands with both the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party at different times. He jokingly said that Nitish Kumar has become a little more infamous. Tyagi stressed that socialist leader Kumar will not go anywhere now and will remain with the BJP.