Ahead of Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) president Upendra Kushwaha’s likely move to the ruling JD(U) on March14 or 15, as many as 35 of his party leaders, including State president (in-charge), on Friday joined the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). These leaders declared it was a merger with the RJD.
Mr. Kushwaha had convened a meeting of party leaders in Patna on March13 to discuss his move to switch parties.
However, RLSP State party president (in-charge) Virendra Kushwaha said, “We’ve have expelled our leader Upendra Kushwaha from the party and merged RLSP with RJD today.” The RLSP leaders took membership of the RJD in presence of party leader and Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav, State RJD president Jagdanand Singh and party leader Prem Kumar Mani at party headquarters in Patna.
The list of RLSP leaders includes Nirmal Kushwaha, Jitendra Kushwaha, Madhu Manjari Mehta, Vijay Mahto, Sajjan Kashyap, Diwakar Kushwaha, Amit Kumar, Chandan Bihari, Krishna Kumar Mahto.
“RLSP leaders have merged into the RJD. Earlier, Upendra Kushwaha used to say that whoever has friends like Nitish Kumar doesn’t need an enemy but, now Mr Kushwaha has started liking Mr Kumar who, earlier, had used a derogatory term for him,” Mr. Tejashwi Yadav said after the event.
He added that Mr Kushwaha had set-off many protests against Bihar government’s deplorable educational condition “but now when question papers are being leaked and teachers appointment are not being done by the government, Mr Kushwaha chooses to look other way”.
The leaders’ move seems to pre-empt Mr Kushwaha’s move to merge the party with the JD(U). Recently, State JD(U) chief Basistha Narayan Singh had said, “Mr. Kushwaha has already come to the JD(U) and now only formalities are to be done of RLSP’s merger with us”.
The RLSP chief’s move is a homecoming of sorts as Mr. Kushwaha had been a close ally of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in 2005, but later parted ways and went on to become a Union minister in the NDA’s first term. He then quit the alliance and joined the RJD-Congress mahagathbandhan. However, the RLSP failed to win a single seat in the October-November 2020 Assembly polls.
Party leaders close to him had recently told The Hindu that “everything has been finalised to go with the JD(U)”. They added that Mr Kushwaha may be given a crucial post in the JD(U).
“He may be given charge of organisational head of the party’s Lu-Kush (kurmi-koiri) backward caste vote bank as after last Assembly poll in which the JD(U) could win only 43 seats while ally BJP won 74. Mr. Kumar might be willing to forge an alliance with Mr. Kushwaha to capture the backward kurmi-koiri of roughly around 13% of the total vote-share,” said a senior RLSP leader close to Mr Kushwaha. “Wait for two days more and everything will be clear,” he added.
