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Veteran Singh may join JD-U, say sources
By Dheeraj Sinha*
Patna: Ahead of Bihar polls, the main opposition party in the state, Rashtriya Janata Dal, on Thursday suffered a major setback when its septuagenarian leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh resigned from the party, ending his 32-year old association with Lalu Prasad. He is currently in the Intensive Care Unit at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, being treated for complications after a coronavirus infection.
“After Karpuri Thakur’s death, I stood behind you for 32 years but no more,” Singh, now 74, said in a handwritten note on plain paper to Lalu Yadav. He also wrote that he had received much love and support from the party before concluding by saying, “please forgive me”.
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Singh’s resignation only exposes the fault lines in the RJD’s top leadership, failing to keep its senior most leader in good humour. As RJD apparently lost its moorings following the incarceration of Lalu in a fodder scam case, Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav are likely to be targeted by their political foes for their failure to run the party in an efficient manner in absence of their father. Tej Pratap, who has already lost much of his political credentials due to his unpredictable style of functioning, Tejashwi Yadav, aspiring to be declared as chief ministerial candidate of grand alliance in the coming polls, faces the major challenge.
Singh was reportedly annoyed over the likely induction of another upper caste Rajput leader of his constituency and former Lok Janashakti Party MP Rama Singh, former Lok Janshakti Party MP from Vaishali parliamentary constituency.
Rama Singh had defeated Raghuvansh Singh who was the RJD candidate in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In last 2019 Lok Sabha poll, Rama Singh contested the election from Vaishali as an Independent candidate after he was denied ticket. He was defeated by LJP candidate Veena Devi. Raghuvansh Singh was also in the fray and stood second in the poll.
Singh had earlier too tendered his resignation but from the party post of vice president in June this year in protest against efforts to induct Rama Singh into the RJD.
Tej Pratap had then made castigating remarks against the former union minister Singh, over his resignation from RJD’s vice president post. Tej Pratap Yadav had said: “RJD is an ocean and Singh is like a mug of water of it whose coming/going will have no impact on the party.”
Later, Tejashwi tried to mollify Singh by meeting him in a hospital in Delhi but the damage could not be undone. Now sources say former union minister Singh is likely to join Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal -United.
Singh had been with the RJD since its inception in 1997 and with Lalu Yadav since their Janata Dal days.
*The writer is a senior journalist
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