In a jolt to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s minority card, a Muslim woman Minister on Tuesday resigned both from his Cabinet and the primary membership of the Janata Dal (United).
“I have resigned from the Cabinet and the JD(U) and have sent my resignation letter to the Chief Minister,” said Parveen Amanullah, who was the Social Welfare Minister in the Nitish Kumar Cabinet for a long time.
She refused to disclose the reasons behind her decision to quit the Nitish Cabinet and party. Amanullah is the daughter of diplomat-turned-politician Syed Shahabuddin and wife of a senior IAS officer Afzal Amanullah.
She, significantly, did not rule out the possibility of joining another political party and to contest the upcoming lok Sabha polls. “I’ll take a decision on this and inform soon,” she said.
Contesting for the first time Amanullah, who was active in social works in the State for a long time, had won the last State Assembly poll from Sahebpur Kamal, a Muslim-dominated constituency in Begusarai district.
Earlier, Amanullah had hit headlines when she had protested against JD(U) strongman and MlA Anant Singh, who allegedly encroached upon a park area in the posh Patliputra colony. Anant Singh has a posh hotel in front of the park. Amanullah too lives in Patliputra colony and she, all alone, fought against the encroachment and protested it tooth and nail.
Significantly, no one from that colony had come forward in her support for obvious reasons but finally the MlA had to vacate the park which, reportedly, had embarrassed the ruling echelons of the state.
The buzz in the political corridor was that after that incident Amanullah had fallen from the grace of the top brass of the party and she was not getting enough support for her departmental works.
“I was not getting the required support from the system in discharging my duties”, she said while resigning from the Cabinet. Now, with Amanullah had set the ball rolling, many in the State believed, it would interesting to see how many more would be following suit in days to come.