JDU rift over CAB explodes: Prashant Kishor reminds CM Nitish Kumar of 'victory of 2015'

Janata Dal (United) vice president Prashant Kishor on Wednesday took another swipe at the party leadership for its support for the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). He issued a reminder about the voters who reposed their faith in the party in the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, hinting that the JDU's current actions were a betrayal of this mandate. At that time, JDU formed the government with its pre-poll ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) having won a landslide mandate with 178 seats. However, the two parties fell out in 2017, with the JDU going back to its erstwhile alliance partner BJP. Moreover, Kishor taunted that the JDU wouldn’t have so much leverage without its 2015 electoral performance.  

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Rift in JDU

Kishor was considered a key architect of the 2015 victory of the Mahagatbandhan in Bihar. He and some leaders such as Pavan Varma have openly expressed their disapproval of the CAB and asked party chief Nitish Kumar to reconsider his position on the Bill. The JDU vice president highlighted that the Bill ran afoul of the party's constitution which prominently featured the word 'secular'. 

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The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019

The CAB was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday after a day-long debate. It seeks to provide citizenship to the minority communities namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. This will be applicable to the members of these communities having arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014. Moreover, they will not be considered as illegal migrants. Additionally, the mandatory residence period for naturalised citizenship for these communities would be reduced to 5 years. Home Minister Amit Shah tabled the CAB in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. 

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