PATNA: Amid the rumor that the former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha and chief minister Nitish kumar They may come together again, after their recent meeting here four days ago, the RLSP chief on Sunday played down the speculations as “premature guesses.”
Kushwaha said he had a cordial meeting with Kumar earlier in the week, but denied having reached an agreement for a return home. However, he did not rule out the possibility of a reunion in the future.
Political circles had indicated that Kushwaha could merge his Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) with the ruling Janata dal (United), and would later be included in the state cabinet as a member of the legislative council.
The new NDA government, under which Kumar was sworn in on November 16, has 14 ministers in the cabinet, including the prime minister. According to the constitutional provisions, Bihar The cabinet can accommodate up to 36 members. Many ministerial positions, therefore, are still vacant.
“It’s wild speculation … I don’t long for a ministerial post or a seat on the legislative council. We had a good meeting … we talked about the latest political situation. Beyond that, any conjecture is baseless,” Kushwaha said. PTI.
The RLSP chief further said that Kumar had invited him to his bungalow “to explore the option of working together,” which he willingly accepted.
When asked about the possibility of a reunion, Kushwaha said that “there is no such plan as of now … but who knows what will happen tomorrow.”
Shortly after the meeting, Kushwaha, whose RLSP fought in alliance with BSP and AIMIM in the recently concluded Bihar polls, launched a scathing attack on the RJD leader. Tejashwi Yadav for making a “personal attack” on the prime minister during a brief assembly session last month.
JD (U) spokesman Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, without going into the details of what happened at the December 2 meeting, said: “Kushwaha believes in the same ideology as the ruling party and if he makes the decision to join us , I would be nice … ”
The RLSP might have gone blank in the October-November state elections, but the caste dynamics in Bihar suggest that the Kushwaha, a relatively empowered CBO group, may increase Kumar’s political clout.
After parting ways with Lalu Prasad in 1998, Kumar had forged a powerful “Luv-Kush” partnership with the Kurmi and Kushwaha castes coming together as a potent OBC bloc against the electorally significant Yadavs.
Kumar had appointed Kushwaha as the leader of the opposition in 2004, though he was an MLA for the first time, ignoring many lawmakers who had suggested otherwise.
Over time, Kushwaha became rebellious and broke away from Kumar to form his own party.
The RLSP later became part of the BJP-led NDA before the 2014 general election and Kushwaha became a member of the government of Narendra Modi 1.0.
But, the return of JD (U) to the NDA fold in July 2017 changed the equations once again, and the RLSP left the coalition and became part of the RJD-led Grand Alliance.
However, the Mahagathbandhan suffered a severe beating in the 2019 parliamentary elections and Kushwaha lost the election of the Karakat and Ujiyarpur Lok Sabha seats.
Weeks before the 2020 Bihar assembly elections, he left Mahagathbandhan and presented a six-party front, with Uttar Pradesh leader Mayawati and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi as prominent members.
The front failed miserably, but AIMIM managed to win five seats in the Muslim-dominated Seemachal region, emerging as a new force in Bihar politics.
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