PATNA: All is not well in Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) camp in Bihar. On Tuesday, party’s five MLCs resigned, forcing a split in its legislature group in the Bihar Legislative Council, and joined ruling JD-U headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The development came on a day when former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, one of the founding members of the RJD and a staunch supporter of its jailed supremo Lalu Prasad, stepped down as national vice-president in protest against the proposed induction of one of his rivals.
The five MLCs — S M Qamar Alam, Sanjay Prasad, Radha Charan Seth, Ranvijay Kumar Singh and Dilip Rai — met Vidhan Parishad acting chairman Awadhesh Narain Singh and personally handed over their resignation letters, officials of the Upper House of the bicameral legislature said.
They also requested Singh that they should be recognised as a separate group and allowed to merge with the JD-U.
Meanwhile, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who has stood with the party through thick and thin, shot off a letter announcing his resignation from the post expressing strong displeasure over the state of affairs in the RJD.
Singh, who is currently admitted to AIIMS, Patna and undergoing treatment for Covid-19, made it clear that he was not quitting the party but added he was extremely unhappy over the kind of people the RJD was planning to induct.
Sources close to the RJD veteran, a former Union minister, confirmed that his displeasure stemmed from reports that Rama Singh, a mafia don-turned-politician to whom he lost his Vaishali Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 polls, may join the party.
Bihar is likely to go to polls on October-November.