Led by Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha, NDA partner RLSP is all set to walk out of the Modi Government and join hands with Sharad Yadav’s newly outfit Loktantrik Janta Dal (LJD) next month. The Congress is in touch with the RJD in Bihar to get Kuswaha “respectable” number of seats to change side.
Sources said leaders of both the Congress and the RJD are engaged for the seat-sharing talks even as the BJP and the JD(U) indicated they will not spare more than two seats to the RLSP.
Currently the RLSP has three Members of Parliament. For past few months, Kushwaha has been sending signals of leaving the NDA over seat-sharing issue.
Hours after BJP chief Amit Shah and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, in a joint statement last month, announced agreement on seat-sharing for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Upendra Kushwaha met RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav fuelling talks of him joining the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan in Bihar.
“In Bihar, the RJD is in the driver’s seat and whichever way they drive we have to ride,” quipped a top Congress leader. He added that both the Congress and Kushwaha are confident that in present circumstances RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav has an upper hand in Bihar in comparison to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Nitish had won the State elections as part of Mahagathbandhan in which Lalu Yadav’s RJD bagged more seats than him.
Sources said Sharad Yadav who broke away with Nitish Kumar is keen to contest Lok Sabha and for that he needs a platform and hence he is likely to merge his outfit with RLSP very soon. Yadav enjoys the confidence of Congress as well as RJD because he quit his parent party on difference of ideology on the decision of Nitish to break away with Lalu and again join hands with BJP.
The relation between Nitish Kumar and Kushwaha has reached a point of no return with both leaders making caustic comments about each other. A fortnight ago, RLSP workers were beaten up by the police in Patna for protesting against Nitish Kumar for taking objectionable jibe at Kushwaha.