‘Gujarat isn’t an internal matter’

Having bitten the bullet, Ram Vilas Paswan is confident that other leaders will join him in lodging some form of protest against the develop...

Having bitten the bullet, Ram Vilas Paswan is confident that other leaders will join him in lodging some form of protest against the developments in Gujarat. In an interview to The
Indian Express, Paswan revealed that Chandrababu Naidu and Mamata Banerjee were among those who spoke to him after his resignation.

‘‘The allies are worried at the way the BJP and RSS are functioning… I cannot say what they will do in Parliament tomorrow. They can even take a decision in the eleventh hour,’’ Paswan said.

Clarifying that he was out of the NDA, Paswan denied that his decision had anything to do with the formation of a government in Uttar Pradesh or the change in his portfolio. ‘‘I have now left power and will be walking towards a jungle. If I prove myself to be a tiger, I will walk on in the jungle, but if I am left alone and end up as a jackal, I might die,’’ he said.

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The allies were not permitted to discuss the Gujarat issue in Cabinet meetings or NDA meetings, stated Paswan. ‘‘We were told, this is an internal issue of the BJP. We kept saying, this is not an internal matter but a national event. Where nearly 1,000 people have been killed, Gujarat cannot be an internal party matter.’’

One of the calls Paswan received after news of his resignation spread around was from the prime minister. Paswan, according to his family members, didn’t speak to Vajpayee, and was later informed that his resignation had been forwarded to the President.
Click here to read the complete interview

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

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