In poll-bound Bihar, the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal on Tuesday suffered a shock with five of its MLCs quitting the party to join Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United). Another blow came to the party when ailing senior party leader and former Union Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh resigned from the post of national vice-president while expressing reservation over his rival’s likely joining the party in coming days.
The five RJD MLCs — Sanjay Prasad, Radha Charan Seth, Ranvijay Kumar Singh, S.M. Qamar Alam and Dilip Rai — met acting chairman of the State council Awadhesh Narain Singh and handed over their resignation letters. They requested Mr. Singh to recognise them as a separate group and allow them to be merged with the ruling JD(U).
With five of the RJD’s total eight members in the Upper House having resigned, party leader and former Chief Minister Rabri Devi may lose her position as Leader of the Opposition in the 75-member Council. Now the RJD has only three members in the Council and under the rules, the main opposition party must have at least 10% of the total seats in the Upper House for its leader to don the post of Leader of the Opposition.
After the resignation of RJD MLCs, senior JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh told media persons that “the RJD does not respect its party leaders ... all these MLCs first resigned from the RJD and then expressed the wish to join JD(U)… we welcome them to our party.”
Tejaswi’s charge
However, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said, “Since elections are coming, leaders from one party will switch over to another party…but, this has also exposed that the JD(U) has no vote bank of its own and it throws all kinds of allurement to other party leaders to remain in power.” The RJD leaders held a meeting at the official residence of Ms. Rabri Devi to review the situation after five of its MLCs quit the party.
In another blow, Mr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh resigned from the post of party’s national vice-president. Mr. Singh is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital for COVID-19. Mr. Singh, the four-time RJD MP from Vaishali, is said to be miffed over the recent meeting of his rival Rama Kishore Singh with Mr. Tejashwi Yadav. The buzz in RJD is that Mr. Rama Kishore Singh is to join the RJD on June 29. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Mr. Rama Kishore Singh as Lok Janshakti Party candidate defeated Mr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh from Vaishali.
“Mr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has been the party’s senior leader and he is unwell these days … he is not going anywhere but will remain with us,” said State RJD chief Jagdanand Singh.
