By directly asking RCP to join Modi government, BJP had clearly undermined Nitish Kumar

New Delhi: Rebel Janata Dal (United) leader Ram Chandra Prasad Singh, popularly known as RCP Singh, has spilled the beans about his joining the Union Cabinet and in the process appeared to have created discord between Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership.

Giving a background of how he joined the central government, Singh told reporters on Sunday that JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh, also known as Lalan Singh, called him on July 4, 2021, to inform him that union home minister Amit Shah spoke to the chief minister on the proposed expansion of the Union Cabinet.

“Lalanji told me that the chief minister asked the union home minister to speak to the JD(U) chief (Singh held the post then). Lallanji asked me to seek 4-5 ministerial berths from Amit Shah. I told him they didn’t give two berths last time. How come they will give 4-5 this time? The next day at 9.15 am, the union home minister laughingly called me and said the Union Cabinet is going to be expanded and we want the JD(U) to be a part of the government. He said we want you to be the JD(U) representative in the government. He further asked me to convey this to Nitishji. I met Nitishji who told me to take the oath and that he will make Lalanji the national president,” Singh informed reporters.

He later took oath as a union minister on July 7, 2021.

If what Singh said was right, it is clear that the BJP specifically wanted him to be the JD(U) representative in the Union Cabinet. That means Kumar was not given a choice to select his nominee and was forced to accept the BJP’s decision.

But Kumar had the last laugh. He declined Singh’s re-nomination to the Rajya Sabha in June this year, a move that eventually resulted in his resignation from the Union Cabinet.

Singh was once considered a very close confidant of Kumar to the extent that he was for all practical purposes the number two in the JD(U). In fact, poll strategist Prashant Kishor had blamed Singh for his exit from the JD(U), claiming that the former civil servant felt threatened by his rise in the party.

But Singh’s growing proximity with the BJP had visibly unnerved Kumar who then began to clip his wings, ultimately leading to his exit from the JD(U).

Ever since the 2020 assembly elections in which the JD(U) emerged as a junior partner to the BJP, Kumar has been sharing an uneasy relationship with his alliance partner.

While the BJP won 74 seats, the JD(U) bagged 43. On the other hand, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) registered victory in 75 constituencies, becoming the largest party in the 243-member Bihar assembly. The Congress got 19 seats whereas the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) bagged 12, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won five out of which four later joined the RJD, the Hindustani Awami Morcha of Jitin Ram Manjhi and Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP) secured four seats each, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) two each while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) won one each. The remaining seat was bagged by an independent.

Kumar privately held the BJP responsible for his party’s poor show in the assembly elections. He was convinced that the BJP had prompted former union minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag to contest independently in a bid to cut into the JD(U) votes. While Paswan’s party managed to bag just one seat, he succeeded in restricting the JD(U) to 43.

Paswan’s party, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), dented the prospects of the JD(U) in around 30 constituencies with the RJD emerging victorious in the majority of those seats.

The fact that the JD(U) still nurses the grudge could be gauged from Lallan Singh’s allegations at his press conference on Sunday that while Chirag was part of the conspiracy to topple the Nitish Kumar government in 2020, RCP Singh was being used to bring it down now. Though a veiled attack, Lallan Singh’s insinuation was clear.

Another bone of contention between the two allies is the continuation of Bihar assembly speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha’s continuation on the post. Kumar has been seeking Sinha’s removal ever since their spat in the assembly but the BJP is unwilling to oblige him.

Of late, Kumar has taken a contrasting stand from that of the BJP. He has spoken against the proposed population control legislation, anti-conversion law, National Register of Citizens (NRC), National Population Register (NPR), and national caste census besides the demand for special category status for Bihar, an issue that he uses to switch sides.

It will be interesting to see if Kumar does another volte-face of his political career or sticks to the present arrangement to debunk the image of being a “paltu ram (known turncoat)” of Bihar politics.