RCP’s induction in BJP proves he was their agent : JD(U)

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumars JDU Friday asserted that its charge that its former national president R C P Singh had become a BJP agent stood vindicated with his induction into the saffron party.JDU national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan vented spleen against the bureaucrat-turned-politician a day after the latter joined the BJP in Delhi.Our supreme leader Nitish Kumar had relinquished the top party post to elevate RCP Singh but he became an agent of BJP and started working on their agenda.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) Friday asserted that its charge that its former national president R C P Singh had become a ''BJP agent” stood vindicated with his induction into the saffron party.

JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan vented spleen against the bureaucrat-turned-politician a day after the latter joined the BJP in Delhi.

“Our supreme leader Nitish Kumar had relinquished the top party post to elevate RCP Singh but he became an agent of BJP and started working on their agenda. What we always suspected, has been confirmed,” he said. “R C P Singh was working towards weakening Nitish Kumar's hold over his own party. There were plans to do in Bihar, with BJP’s help, what had been previously done in Maharashtra,'' Lalan asserted.

The allusion was to speculations that R C P Singh had been in touch with a section of JD(U) leaders with a view to engineering a split in the party, which would have been a loss of face for Kumar.

He ran afoul of his benefactor in 2021 when he accepted a berth in the union cabinet without Kumar's consent.

Kumar was against the party agreeing to a “token representation” of just one cabinet berth. He had expressed his displeasure by making R C P Singh step down as the national president barely a few months after having been appointed in place of the Bihar chief minister, who chose to give up the top party post much ahead of expiry of term.

The former IAS officer had to make a hasty exit from the party after a series of developments, most notable being denial of another Rajya Sabha term to him that led him to resign from the union cabinet.

Lalan also expressed elation over Supreme Court’s judgements on the Maharashtra political crisis and Delhi government’s powers with regard to transfer and posting of officers.

The JD(U) chief, who was on Thursday in Mumbai along with Kumar at meetings with Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, said “Uddhav Thackeray has already said that he had put in his papers as Maharashtra CM on moral grounds. Now we should see if Eknath Shinde has the moral courage to do the same”.

About Delhi, where Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is being viewed by JD(U) as a prospective partner in the “opposition unity” drive, Lalan said, “The Centre had been using the lieutenant governor to cause problems for the government elected by the state”.

“Both judgements are shining examples of the judiciary upholding democratic principles in the country and thwarting attempts of the ruling dispensation to run the show with the help of its caged parrots,” said the JD(U) chief in an obvious reference to central agencies like CBI and ED and their alleged misuse by the Modi government.

“The ED is being headed by a pliable officer who has been getting extensions repeatedly, causing even the apex court to express dismay”, claimed Lalan.

“The BJP is on its way out. Let 2024 come. The tone has been set in Karnataka where we expect a bigger defeat for BJP than what exit polls suggest. This would be despite the party resorting to every trick in the book and even the prime minister himself running a flagrantly communal campaign”, the JD(U) chief added.