After sulking for the past few months, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) president Upendra Kushwaha on Monday resigned from the Union Council of Ministers accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of reducing Cabinet to a “rubber stamp”, “betraying” backward classes, and giving Bihar only “jumlas”.
Making the announcement a day ahead of Parliament’s Winter Session and counting of the votes in five State Assembly polls, the RLSP leader from Bihar said he is open to joining the Opposition alliance. He claimed the BJP-led NDA will not be able to win a single seat in the State. Kushwaha had been targeting the BJP and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for weeks.
Congress congratulated Kushwaha saying the former Minister rejected the PM and decided to walk out of the NDA as he was distressed by the harassment of farmers, youth, women security and poor governance by the BJP and Nitish.
Kushwaha is likely to meet Congress chief Rahul Gandhi soon.
Kushwaha, whose break-up with the BJP was expected, sharply attacked Modi on a host of issues in his resignation letter, which was also released to the media. He said he felt “betrayed and dejected” by the Prime Minister’s leadership and alleged “fixing” political opponents and not working for the poor had become the Government’s priority.
The former Minister of State (MoS) for HRD also raised the planks of Other Backward Classes and social justice --- used by the Opposition to decimate the BJP in the Bihar Assembly polls in 2015 --- to target Modi. He alleged the Modi-led Government was implementing the RSS agenda and dubbed it unconstitutional.
Kushwaha has been upset since the BJP made it clear that his party will not be given more than two Lok Sabha seats in 2019 against the three it had fought in 2014. The party has two MPs and two MLAs. BJP president Amit Shah’s announcement that the BJP and the JD(U) will contest an equal number of seats also did not go down well with Kushwaha, who has long had a bitter equation with Kumar.
The NDA won 31 of 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in 2014 and has now been bolstered by the presence of the JD(U), which had fought against it in the last polls.
Opposition parties believe political winds are no longer as favourable to the BJP in Bihar due to “anti-incumbency” against both Modi and Kumar and are hoping that Kushwaha’s exit will further weaken the State’s ruling alliance. “It (NDA) won’t be able to open its account in the State this time,” Kushwaha claimed.
At a Press conference, Kushwaha said people like him were attracted to Modi in 2014 due to his OBC background and hoped that he would deliver on the agenda of social justice. “People believed ‘achchhe din’ will come. It did not happen. Bihar remains where it was,” he said.
Targeting the Modi Government for not releasing the census data of the OBCs, he said there is fear and confusion among the backward classes. “Ministers and officers posted in ministries have become figureheads as virtually all decisions are taken by you and the BJP president. Which is unconstitutional,” his letter added. “The promise of providing Bihar with a special package has been the biggest jumla (rhetoric),” Kushwaha said, as he also attacked Kumar for leaving the State’s infrastructure in a shambles.