Prashant Kishor, the national vice president of Nitish Kumar’s party Janata Dal United who has been giving pinpricks to his party over its new stand on the citizenship law, went a step further on Thursday. Kishor contested the stand taken by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA coalition’s stand on the law and stressed that this law, combined with the citizens’ register, could be turned into a “lethal combo”.

“We are told that #CAB is bill to grant citizenship and not to take it from anyone,” Kishor tweeted on Thursday, a reference to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s insistence in Parliament that Muslims in India did not need to be worried on account of this law.

The law is to give citizenship to people who have escaped persecution in neighbouring countries, not take it away from those who have it, Shah told the Rajya Sabha during the debate on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that grants citizenship to religious minorities from three Muslim-majority countries in India’s neighbourhood.

Prashant Kishor delivered his counter. “But the truth is together with #NRC, it could turn into a lethal combo in the hands of Government to systematically discriminate and even prosecute people based on religion,” Kishor, who was Nitish Kumar’s election strategist for the 2015 state elections, tweeted.

It is a concern that has been expressed by many opposition leaders, who recalled BJP’s pitch during elections in Bengal. Top BJP leaders assured Hindu migrants from Bangladesh that changes in the citizenship law would protect them from action when the National Register of Citizens project is rolled out nationwide.

The changes in the citizenship law were proposed by the NDA government in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term in 2015. Nitish Kumar’s party, which had spoken out against granting citizenship on grounds of religious persecution on non-Muslims, had criticised the move on previous occasions. This time, the party tweaked its stand but Kishor hasn’t.

This isn’t the first time that the JDU leader, who has a day job as a political strategist, has taken a stand that doesn’t mirror the one adopted by his party. But Nitish Kumar has taken a liberal view of his remarks in the past.

JDU leaders have interpreted his tweet attacks to indicate his future plans outside the party. Prashant Kishor’s team is already working with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in Bengal and was associated with YSR Congress chief Jagan Reddy’s campaign.

Bangladesh’s political leadership and diplomats have followed the debate in India on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill [CAB] with growing wariness over the past few months. It is unlikely that they missed public comments by Indian leaders in Parliament this week about the deportation of all illegal migrants and the “persecution” of minorities in neighbouring countries.

Some 1.9 million were excluded from the final NRC for Assam, one of the states in India’s strategically important North-east, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in the state have often spoken about the deportation of these people. While these public remarks don’t usually name the country to which such people will be deported, it is assumed by almost everyone that the destination will be Bangladesh.

The NRC issue figured during Bangladesh Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina’s meeting with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi in October, with Bangladesh foreign secretary Shahidul Haque saying after the talks that Dhaka takes comfort from New Delhi’s assurances that the implementation of NRC is an internal matter but will keep a close eye on developments.

After the contentious debate in Parliament on CAB, it is now obvious that the discomfort in Dhaka is increasing, especially at a time when India-Bangladesh relations are going through what leaders on both sides describe as a “shonali odhyay” (golden chapter).

Even before CAB was passed by the Rajya Sabha, Bangladesh foreign minister AK Abdul Momen took umbrage at Indian home minister Amit Shah’s remarks about the oppression of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, including their reported inability to undertake religious activities.

Momen told Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday: “What they are saying in regards to torture on Hindus is unwarranted as well as untrue.”

He added: “There are very few countries in the world where communal harmony is as good as in Bangladesh. We have no minorities. We are all equal. If he [Amit Shah] stayed in Bangladesh for a few months, he would see the exemplary communal harmony in our country.”

Noting that India has “many problems” of its own, Momen added, “As a friendly country, we hope that India will not do something that affects our friendly relationship.”

Even before CAB reached Parliament, Bangladesh’s outgoing high commissioner to India, Syed Muazzem Ali, bristled at suggestions that people from his country were sneaking into India’s North-east in search of better economic prospects.

“There has been so much criticism of Bangladesh in North-east India because of alleged illegal immigration from our side, but let me tell you that a person of my country would rather swim in the ocean and reach Italy instead of coming to India. A citizen of Bangladesh would like to go to a place where he can earn more but as you know the per capita income in India is not that high,” Ali said at a farewell news conference at the Press Club of India.

Ali’s stand is buttressed by the fact that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) recently revised Bangladesh’s GDP growth rate for 2019 from 8% to 8.1%, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the region, and several projections suggest that Bangladesh’s per capita income could outpace India’s by 2020.

Bangladesh’s diplomats are concerned about the potential for issues such as NRC and CAB to cause disquiet among their country’s population.

In other interactions with Indian journalists, Ali has pointed out that Bangladesh has surpassed the US in sending foreign tourists to India – 2.8 million Bangladeshis visited the country last year – and that thousands of Indians now work in Bangladesh.

“We have noted India’s stand that these are internal issues, but our people see the public comments by India’s leadership on deportations, especially during election campaigns, and are worried. What do we tell them?” a senior Bangladeshi diplomat said during a recent interaction, asking not to be named.

A second Delhi-based Bangladeshi diplomat, who too declined to be named, said: “We are your closest friend in South Asia. It’s a little hard for Bangladesh to understand why a friend like India is treating us this way on things like NRC.”

Since she assumed power, Prime Minister Hasina has worked closely with India on both development and security issues. The successful resolution of the land and maritime border issues gave a boost to ties despite the lack of progress on the sharing of the waters of the Teesta river, a strategic and emotional issue for Dhaka.

Experts fear the contentious elements introduced by CAB and NRC, or the angry rhetoric surrounding them, could undo a lot of this good work.

There is little doubt that former minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Eknath Khadse from Maharashtra, sidelined for the last three years by his party leadership and frustrated with this treatment, is talking shop with both Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena. The former Leader of Opposition, considered to be from the Gopinath Munde camp is likely to quit his parent party of 40 years, if he gets a cabinet ministerial portfolio from either NCP or Sena, admit BJP insiders.

That’s big if given that both the parties have more than enough ministerial claimants on their own.

But, it’s clear that as the BJP readies itself to sit in the Opposition benches in Maharashtra next week in Nagpur during the winter session of the state legislature, it’s not in a position to put its best foot forward.

The party faces an open revolt from old guard like Khadse even as younger leaders like former minister and party’s Other Backward Class (OBC) face Pankaja Munde have made her unhappiness with her electoral defeat in state assembly poll clear. Munde, the daughter of senior BJP leader, late Gopinath Munde, has inherited his political constituency – a large following of the Vanjari community besides other OBCs. While she has accepted her electoral defeat at the hands of her rival and cousin Dhananjay Munde as her responsibility, those close to her have echoed that her fall was orchestrated by those within the party. The finger has been indirectly pointed at former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who shares a good rapport with Dhananjay.

With both Khadse and Munde and other sidelined senior BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule hailing from the OBC community, the support base of the BJP, the party is now also having to defend itself over allegations of sidelining the leaders of the community.

The party withheld tickets to five senior leaders in the state assembly polls including Khadse, Bawankule, former ministers Vinod Tawde, Prakash Mehta and former Mumbai chief Raj Purohit. This had not gone down well within the party cadre especially in the light of tickets given to the Congress-NCP turncoats. No leader barring Khadse has so far made his discontent public but there is clear indication of an internal uneasiness within the state unit against the way the party is being run. Much of this internal ire is being vented at Fadnavis. Fadnavis, for his part, has made it amply clear that the decision to sideline these leaders was taken by his seniors in Delhi – the central parliamentary board.

“The decision to not give tickets to these leaders was not made by us. The Maharashtra unit recommended these names but the central parliamentary board did not give it to them for some reason. I cannot comment on that. I do admit that by not giving ticket to someone like Bawankule, the party’s performance was impacted in Vidarbha,” Fadnavis had told HT after the poll results.

In an interview to Loksatta digital on Monday, Fadnavis reiterated this even as he admitted that there was bound to be some introspection and discussion within the party post the results and their failure to form the government. “Khadse will talk to party seniors about his complaints. I spoke to Munde and she has clarified that speculation about her is not true. BJP is a party of OBCs, there is no question of sidelining the community. We have 37 elected OBC legislators, the most from any community. Our PM does not believe in caste but he represents the OBCs,” he added.

Despite Fadnavis’ clarifications, all is unlikely to get well so soon. As Munde holds a rally to celebrate her father’s birth anniversary on December 12 at her home turf Beed, this platform is being seen indirectly as those of dissenters within the party. It remains to be seen how she well she can send a signal to her supporters about her unhappiness and pressurise her party into giving her a role in the opposition.

“Khadse may leave the party as he has been humiliated and edged out. Munde will not take that call. On the whole, these are pressure tactics and so far the BJP top brass seems to be not responding to it. But, if the party has to sit in the opposition for some time – at least another 2 years – then the party leadership cannot afford to not listen to discontended leaders,” said political analyst Surendra Jondhale.

As Jondhale says, it would be best for the party to keep its flock together and galvanised as it sits in the opposition.

Besides the unhappiness of party old timers, the BJP will also have to contend with keeping the turncoats happy within its fold. More than 16 MLAs elected on BJP tickets are turncoats, who joined the party in the hope of coming to power. With BJP out of power, some of them are already mulling of ‘ghar wapasi’. They are waiting to see how long this three-legged government can last.

‘This could be NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s last masterstroke’ is the buzz in the political circles of the state.

To combat this, the BJP should ideally project an OBC face to lead the Legislative Council. Munde will fit the job well as the party does not have a strong team in the Upper House. But, if not Munde then one of the dissenting or sidelined leaders like Bawankule, Khadse or Tawde could be given that opportunity.

Incumbent state chief Chandrakant Patil, a Maratha leader, considered to be close to party chief Amit Shah is likely to be continued post organisational rejig by the end of this month. Fadnavis could also use both his former cabinet colleagues Ashish Shelar and Sudhir Mungantiwar in the Legislative Assembly and outside it to defend the party position and attack the ruling government. If the party stands united, it will give less fodder to Sena-Congress-NCP alliance to divert issues and target the Opposition instead.

“This churn is to be expected as there is disappointment within the party for losing out a state like Maharashtra. With Gadkari sidelined, only Fadnavis is in charge and hence he is at the receiving end. Some of this resentment is acting out to get the Leader of Opposition post in the Legislative Council or even angling for the state party president’s post,” said a senior BJP state functionnary.

Here are today’s top news, analysis and opinion at 1 PM. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

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All passenger train operations in Assam, Tripura and Mizoram have been suspended due to major protests in the region over the passage of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament on Wednesday.

Amid violent protests in the Northeast, the contentious bill was cleared by the Rajya Sabha last evening with 125 voting for it and 99 against.

Several long-distance trains from other parts of the country are being terminated at Guwahati, officials at the ministry of railways informed.

Three major long-distance trains have also been cancelled, namely Sikkim Sundari Express from Anand Vihar in New Delhi to Agartala in Tripura, Dibrugarh Rajdhani from Dibrugarh town in Assam to New Delhi and Dibrugarh-Chandigarh Express.

There is a complete suspension of rail services in Tinsukhia, Lumding and major part of Rangiya division of the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR). Beyond Guwahati too, passenger train operation is stopped. From Delhi and other parts of country trains going towards Assam will return from Guwahati itself. Some of the trains whose linked rakes could not be returned from NFR will stand cancelled from Delhi and other parts of country,” a spokesperson for NFR railways said.

A railway station in Dibrugarh’s Chabua, the hometown of the chief minister, was set on fire by protesters late in the night. The Panitola railway station in Tinsukia district was also torched on Wednesday.

The railways also plans to deploy a special unit – Commandos for Railway Security (CORAS) – across sensitive areas in the region, a senior railways ministry official said.

This comes at a time when the armed forces are patrolling the streets of Assam as thousands of protesters opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill or CAB took to the streets last evening, clashing with policemen and plunging the state into chaos.

Amid the simmering protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured the people of Assam that he and the central government are committed to constitutionally safeguard the political interests of the state.

“I want to assure my brothers and sisters of Assam that they have nothing to worry after the passing of #CAB. I want to assure them – no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture. It will continue to flourish and grow,” he said on Twitter on Thursday morning.