Updated: September 13, 2020 1:06:53 pm
Former RJD Leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh at Parliament House in New Delhi in 2017 (Express photo by Prem Nath Pandey)
Former Union Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh passed away on Sunday morning while undergoing treatment in New Delhi. Singh, who had recently resigned from RJD, had fallen seriously ill after developing post-COVID complications. Singh’s condition had deteriorated by Friday evening and he was admitted to AIIMS on Saturday with complaints of a recurrent cough. The 74 year old then a fan was put on.
In tolerating Raghuvansh’s death, RJD Supreme Lalu Prasad tweeted: “I told you the day before yesterday, you are not going anywhere. But you went so far. I am very sad and I will miss you ”.
Supreme RJD Lalu Prasad Yadav and former Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh during the function of the seventeenth day of the party’s founding at the party office in Patna in 2013 (Express photo by Prashant Ravi).
A loyalist loyalist to the supreme RJD whom he supported through thick and thin, Singh came into conflict with the party a few months ago when rumors about the Mafia don became politician Rama Singh, his rival in the Vaishali Lok Sabha constituency. , being admitted to RJD led him to resign from the position of national vice president.
प्रिय रघुवंश बाबू! ये आपने क्या किया?
मैनें परसों ही आपसे कहा था आप कहीं नहीं जा रहे है। लेकिन आप इतनी दूर चले गए।
नि: शब्द हूँ। दुःखी हूँ। बहुत याद आएँगे।
– Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) September 13, 2020
The day he left RJD, Raghuvansh Singh had also accused the party of promoting nepotism and “feudalism” and, without naming names, stated in the separate letter that five members of “one family” have replaced such icons as Mahatma Gandhi, BR Ambedkar, Jayaprakash Narayan, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Karpoori Thakur in the poster of the party.
While Singh did not name either RJD or party chief Lalu Prasad, he lamented, handwritten on his official letterhead, former Lok Sabha MP, the gradual “degradation of politics” and that socialism was being replaced by “dynasty, feudalism, castes and communalism “.
Lalu Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (left), at the RJD National Executive meeting in New Delhi (file)
On September 10, when he wrote a one-line resignation letter to RJD head Lalu Prasad, Singh wrote two other letters, one addressed to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the need for development in Vaishali, the constituency he had represented in Lok. Sabha on multiple occasions, and the other is addressed to no one in particular and entitled “Rajneeti matlab buraai se ladhna, dharm matlab achchhai karna (politics means fighting evil; religion means doing good).” On the same day, the Lalu Prasad sent a letter to Singh of Ranchi, making a emotional appeal to his partner for more than three decades so that he does not leave the party.
Often called the architect of the MNREGA scheme, which was raised when he was the Union’s minister for rural development, Singh has been in the political wilderness for some time, having lost two consecutive elections in 2014 and 2019 from Vaishali, who has represented in the Lok. Sabha a record five times. His relations with Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad’s youngest son and heir apparent, soured when he began pitching for Nitish Kumar back to the RJD-led Grand Alliance, after the party received its worst beating in polls from Lok Sabha. last year. .
Raghuvansh Prashad Singh at the Indian Express brainstorming event in 2007
Raghuvansh was upset by attempts to recruit his archrival and former MP Rama Kishore Singh to the RJD. He resigned as RJD’s national vice president about three months ago, and it was reported that he was upset with Lalu for not intervening even after he made it clear that Rama Kishore “should not be included in the RJD.” Raghuvansh represented the Vaishali constituency in Lok Sabha for five consecutive terms from 1996 before losing to Rama Kishore in 2014.
(With ENS, PTI inputs)
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