The Janata Dal (United) today expelled the rebel party leaders Prashant Kishor and Pavan Varma saying their conduct in recent past has made it clear that they don’t want to abide by the party’s discipline.

The party vice president Kishor and general secretary Pavan Varma took a critical view of the CM’s stand on Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Population Register (NPR), as he came out in support of CAA and flip-flopping on NRC.

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The two JD (U) leaders have been very vocal against the ally BJP after the issue of CAA-NRC-NPR popped up triggering nationwide protests.

After weeks of slug-fest between CM Kumar and Kishor where he took to Twitter and attacked CM on several occasions, Kumar had hinted yesterday at Kishor’s exit.

Party statement, issued by JD(U) chief general secretary K C Tyagi, said that these two were “acting against party’s decisions as well as its functioning” which amounted to breach of discipline.

The JD(U) said, “it is imperative that Kishor be removed from the party, so that he doesn’t fall any lower. The party also accused Kishor of using “insulting words” against the Bihar chief minister.

Yesterday, after JD(U) national vice president Prashant Kishor’s tweet challenging Amit Shah on CAA, the Bihar Chief Minister and party chief Nitish Kumar on Tuesday distanced himself from the leader.

“Someone wrote a letter I replied to it, someone is tweeting, let him tweet. What do I’ve to do with it? One can stay in the party (JD-U) till he wants, he can go if he wants…Do you know how did he join the party? Amit Shah asked me to induct him,” ANI quoted Nitish Kumar as saying.

Last week, JD(U) leader Pavan Varma wrote an open letter to the Bihar chief asking about his stance on the citizenship law as well as on the upcoming Delhi Assembly election.

While launching an attack on Home Minister Amit Shah, Prashant Kishor tweeted “Why don’t you go ahead and try implementing the CAA and NRC in the chronology that you so audaciously announced to the nation.”

In 2018, Prashant Kishor was made the party vice president and has been among Nitish Kumar’s top advisers. Kishor is also a poll strategist and working with Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi.

The Kishor-led political consultancy firm I-PAC was part of the successful election campaign of Narendra Modi in 2014 when he was BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

While, the party’s national general secretary Pavan Varma sought “ideological clarifications” from the party president Kumar over his move to enter into alliance with the BJP outside Bihar after bitterly criticising the top BJP leadership.

The JD-U leadership had earlier slammed Varma for questioning the political ideology of Nitish Kumar saying he is free to take his own course of action.

State JD-U president Vashishtha Narayan said Varma had contributed nothing to the party adding he would ask the national party head to initiate action against Varma. The party leadership has also removed both Varma and Kishor as star campaigners for Delhi elections.