Patna: Bihar Chief Minister and JDU Chief Nitish Kumar has kept the Rajya Sabha candidature of his fellow party leader and Union Minister RCP Singh in abeyance amid the latter's growing proximity with the BJP with which Kumar is not on good terms of late. Singh was once the most trusted lieutenant of chief minister Kumar but the relationship between the two has become bitter now.
The latest example is the RCP's candidature for the Rajya Sabha, which is on tenterhooks and facing uncertainty due to the non-committal stance of Nitish over his name. According to sources in JDU, RCP is said to be developing a close relationship with BJP which has not gone down well with Nitish. As things stand now, Nitish is not on good terms with the saffron party.
The stand of Nitish to call for the all-party meeting to discuss caste-based census in the state has fuelled the speculation over a rift between BJP-JDU coalition in Bihar. The fissures between the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government and the BJP had begun to appear way back in 2019 right after the saffron party came ot power at the center in 2019 and PM Modi later reshuffled his cabinet in July 2021.
When the reshuffling was taking place, JDU leaders in Bihar had created hype as if the party was certain of getting four to five cabinet berths. However, only one went to the kitty of JDU. The induction of RCP into Narendra Modi's cabinet opened Pandora's box. Nitish had right away rejected the one cabinet berth terming its symbolic representation. Two years down the line, Nitish had to be content with the lone berth at the Centre.
As days passed by, a murmuring started in the JDU camp that RCP only batted for his name and did not negotiate for more than one berth in the union cabinet. JDU MP from Munger Lalan Singh who is presently the national president of the party was the front runner but he did not get a berth. Ever since RCP became the union minister in the Narendra Modi government, all is not well in JDU and groupism has surfaced in the camp of Nitish.
One camp is the sympathizer of JDU national president Lalan Singh and Upendra Kushwaha whereas another camp is a sympathizer of RCP. With the biennial Rajya Sabha elections in Bihar scheduled to be held on June 10 and the last date for filing of nominations is May 31, Nitish is keeping mum on the issue and not speaking anything when journalists ask him about the renomination of RCP.
The former IAS officer of UP cadre- 1984 batch, RCP, the bureaucrat- turned-politician was a close confidante of Nitish. Both Nitish and RCP belong to the same caste and district-Nalanda. Having been a long association with Nitish since the time of the Atal Bihari Vajpyee government when Nitish was railway minister, RCP was once his principal secretary.
In 2010, RCP had taken the VRS and the same year he was nominated to Rajya Sabha. His rise in the JDU was unprecedented as he played a key role in the distribution of seats among the alliance partners, also strengthening the party. In 2020, he was made the national president of the JDU and occupied that post till he became union minister.
After becoming the union minister, he reportedly became close to Home Minister Amit Shah and started giving less time to JDU. In the past few months, there have been several instances hinting at his proximity with BJP rather than his own party. For instance, RCP did not attend the iftar party arranged by Nitish and JDU in Ramzan. He recently criticized the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru unlike Nitish, who has never been known as a critic of Nehru.
Apart from all this, RCP was the first union minister who gave donations for the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, a pet project of the BJP. Nitish had always maintained a distance from such issues to keep his secular image alive among the Muslim voters. With Nitish developing a bond with RJD leader Tejashwi and both the leaders on the same page over caste-based census which the BJP does not support, RCP seems unlikely to return to the Nitish camp.
In Delhi, RCP clarified that he has “good relations with Nitish and he also became the union minister “on the instruction of the CM”. Reacting to the question on his proximity with the BJP rather than JDU, RCP said, “My closeness with the BJP is not new. I have been with Nitish ji since 1998 when he was a minister in the center at the time of Vajpayee ji. Then I joined him in Bihar as well. So how come I was not going to get closer to BJP that time than now."
"The nomination is from 24 to 31st May, no need to be in a hurry. Nitish ji will take the final call," he adds. However, political observers opined that if Nitish wants to continue the relation with BJP, then RCP will be re-nominated to Rajya Sabha and if he has decided to switch sides and join the fold of RJD then RCP will be dropped.
Also read: RCP Singh denies rift with Nitish Kumar over Rajya Sabha ticket
