Senior journalist M J Akbar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday. Akbar and Janata Dal-United MP N K Singh joined the BJP, adding to the growing tally of critics turned admirers of party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Joining in the presence of party president Rajnath Singh, Akbar, who has dabbled with electoral politics previously, told reporters that he has returned to “politics because of policy”.
“I have come back to politics because of policy (main rajniti me niti ke liye wapas aya hu). The crisis in front of the country is known to all. This is an opportunity to do whatever little we can do for our country,” Akbar said, giving his rationale for joining politics like other journalists who have come up with their own justification for siding with the Aam Aadmi Party.
He has represented Bihar’s Kishanganj as Congress MP between 1989 and 1991, besides being their spokesperson before severing ties for a sabbatical from politics.
Having shifted his political allegiance long time back, Akbar acknowledged his friendship with former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi but held back from criticising the Congress.
He placed his bet on Modi as he saw in him a “solution to the crisis” the nation was facing. On Modi’s suspected involvement in the Godhra riots of 2002, he remarked:
“...and those who rake up this issue all the time, I want to tell them to read the Justice Krishna report. How many people are there in Gujarat who are in jail through the legal system. More than 100. Can one tell me the numbers as far as the 1984 and 1993 riots are concerned.”
N K Singh, who was a close confidant of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, also joined the BJP on Saturday.