Nagpur: Prominent farmers’ activist Kishore Tiwari – who last week locked horns with Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari over the steep penalties under the new Motor Vehicles Act – broke ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), here on Monday.
Confirming the development, Tiwari – who is President of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) – said that the BJP had invited VJAS as ‘Associate Member’ almost 10 years ago, which he had severed late on Sunday.
“We have broken all ties with the BJP… I shall return to my activities for the farmers in Maharashtra and other parts of India. If required, we shall cooperate with the Shiv Sena for resolving the suffering peasants’ plight,” Tiwari told IANS.
The development came five days after his explosive interview (IANS, Sep. 11), when he warned Gadkari that the stringent MVA penalties “are anti-people and could spur suicides in the country.”
Tiwari’s statements embarrassed the BJP and also snowballed into a major anti-MVA wave with more than half the states in the country rejecting it or watering it down in the past fortnight.
These include key states like Gujarat from where the PM Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah hail, and Gadkari’s home-state Maharashtra.
