Rashtriya Lok Samata Party leader Upendra Kushwaha yesterday quit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance and the government, charging Prime Minister Narendra Modi with betraying Bihar and with pursuing an “opaque style of functioning and non-democratic leadership style”.
Kushwaha, who is the second BJP ally to quit the Modi government after the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), said in his resignation to the prime minister that the union cabinet “has been reduced to a mere rubber stamp”.
“Constitutional offices are being undermined and virtually every institution in the government has been subjected to political appropriation,” he said in the letter, echoing charges increasingly made by the opposition.
“Ministers and officers posted in ministries have become figureheads as virtually all decisions are taken by you, your office and BJP president (which is anti-constitutional),” Kushwaha, who was a minister of state for Human Resource Development, said.
The RLSP leader said the government was pursuing “the agenda of RSS” which he said was “anti-constitutional and neglecting and subverting the agenda of social justice enshrined in the constitution for which we supported the NDA”.
Kushwaha has been at loggerheads with both the BJP and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) for some time. As meetings he had sought with Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah did not materialise, he came in for praise from Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav.
“Having served in your Council of Ministers for the last 55 months, I stand dejected and betrayed by your leadership,” Kushwaha said in the letter sent to Modi.
“There has been a fundamental conflict in what you have promised to the people before elections and what you have actually delivered after coming to power. The promise of providing a special package (to Bihar) has been the biggest ‘jumla’,” he said in the resignation letter.
Asked if he would join an opposition alliance or merge his party with Sharad Yadav’s Loktantrik Janata Dal or work for a third alternative in Bihar, he said: “All options are open for us. We would be taking a call in the coming days.”
Hours after Kushwaha quit, his party is a divided house.
Unhappy over the decision, RLSP’s two legislators in the Bihar openly expressed their opposition and a senior party leader called it a bad move.
Rashtriya Lok Samata Party leader Upendra Kushwaha addresses a press conference in New Delhi yesterday.
