AAP, JD(U) clash after Kejriwal’s letter to Nitish over Shah’s Ambedkar remark

A war of words erupted between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Janata Dal (United) on Friday after former Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal wrote a letter to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to “deeply reflect” on Union home minister Amit Shah’s comments on B R Ambedkar and the JD(U) in turn slammed the AAP chief for not giving representation to Dalits.

The confrontation came amid the faceoff between the central government and the opposition INDIA bloc that have accused each other of having shown disrespect to Ambedkar.

After Shah’s comment about Ambedkar during a speech in the Rajya Sabha was dubbed as an “insult” to the country’s first law minister by the Opposition, Kejriwal shot off a letter to Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and JDU’s Kumar to rethink their partnership with the BJP. Both the TDP and the JDU are part of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In his letter, Kejriwal said people feel that those who love Ambedkar cannot support the BJP that “insulted” the architect of India’s Constitution and urged Kumar and Naidu to ponder over it.

JDU working president and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Jha, in his response to Kejriwal, slammed him for not giving political representation to Dalits and backward classes, and said a leader tainted with corruption charges does not have the right to give suggestions to “someone like Kumar”.

Jha accused Kejriwal of overlooking the marginalised sections and said the AAP did not send a single leader from the Dalit and backward castes to the Rajya Sabha. He also accused him of backtracking on his promise of picking a Dalit deputy chief minister in Punjab.

“Nitish Kumar appointed a MahaDalit as chief minister (Jitin Ram Manjhi in 2014). Kejriwal should look at his track record... when he left the CM’s post, why did he not make a Dalit the CM, why didn’t he do so in Punjab as well where Dalits are in huge numbers,” Jha said.

He went on to add that two Dalits ministers resigned from the Kejriwal cabinet alleging that the welfare of their people was being overlooked.

Jha went on to say that when Kumar during his alliance with the INDIA bloc had raised the issue of caste-census, there was little support from the other partners.

He also slammed Kejriwal for how people from Bihar were treated by the Delhi government in 2020, when the Covid Pandemic struck. “....We have seen how people from Bihar were packed in buses and sent back during Covid. And then Nitish Kumar made all the arrangements for them in Bihar,” he said.

There was no immediate reaction available from the AAP to Jha’s allegations.