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Ex-colleagues of the former journalist are not pleased with the praise Ashish Khetan is sending Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way.

New Delhi: Having quit the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), journalist-turned-politician Ashish Khetan has suddenly developed admiration for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Once a staunch critic of Modi and the NDA government, he surprised many this weekend by heaping praise on the Modi government’s Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana scheme.

“PM Modi’s Ayushman Bharat, if implemented well, will transform the healthcare sector in India,” he tweeted Sunday, “Millions of lives will be saved & poor will be protected from economic ruin.”

Also read: I refuse to be a Modi ‘bhakt’ or an antagonist, says Ashish Khetan

The tweet, which came as Khetan prepared to leave the country for a year-long fellowship, left many of his former party and journalist colleagues dismayed.

Khetan did not respond to ThePrint’s request for comment, but later posted a note on Twitter saying he would not be a Modi ‘bhakt’ or an antagonist. Read the full note here.

Image makeover

When he quit journalism to join the AAP four years ago, Khetan used to go at Modi hammer and tongs, accusing him of giving farmers’ land to corporate houses in Gujarat and talking about a “conspiracy” to project the then prime ministerial candidate of the BJP as a messiah.

He kept up the attack after Modi became Prime Minister in May 2014.

In a tweet on 29 February 2016, he slammed the NDA Budget for reducing the allocation for education and asked, “Does Modi Govt expect d poor to send their kids to Pvt schools (sic)?”

Given this backdrop, Khetan’s tweet this Sunday about Ayushman Bharat appeared to be an attempt at an image makeover — from a slam-bang AAP politician to a non-partisan former politician who no longer wants to be seen as anti-Modi.

There have been other signs too. In a recent TV debate, he said the biggest disadvantage of the opposition’s ‘mahagathbandhan’ was that it was an “opportunistic alliance”.

“It is a given that, in 2019, Modi has an edge,” he said, “But, over the last few years, he emerged as a weaker leader than what he projected to be.”

Though he criticised some of the achievements of the NDA government and took up the pricing of the Rafale fighter jets, his newly developed appreciation for Modi government’s scheme has still intrigued many.

Khetan resigned from the AAP on 15 August this year, citing personal reasons. He said he wanted to focus more on his legal practice.

Also read: Lok Sabha nomination not a factor, says Ashish Khetan as he quits AAP

An AAP leader, however, told ThePrint that Khetan had quit the party as, like many other senior leaders, he was disappointed with the politics of AAP convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The former journalist joined AAP in 2014 and contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from the New Delhi seat. However, he lost to Meenakshi Lekhi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

After AAP won a landslide victory in the 2015 Delhi assembly election, Khetan was appointed vice-chairperson of the Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission. He resigned from the post in April this year.

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