Patna: In a setback to Bihar's main opposition RJD ahead of the state assembly polls, one of the founders of the party, Raghuwansh Prasad Singh, on Thursday resigned from the primary membership. He put his resignation letter from the ICU bed in AIIMS, New Delhi, to party president Lalu Prasad.
The former professor of mathematics at the Bihar University was admitted in the ICU of AIIMS in a serious condition due to post-corona complications.
He had recovered from corona last month. Later, the 74-year-old former union minister, who started his political career with Lalu in 1977, was rushed to a leading private hospital in Gurugram after he developed post-Corona complications.
Two days back, he was shifted to ICU in AIIMS.
His family members claimed the resignation letter written on a plain paper was signed and written by Raghuwansh Babu himself. In his emotional letter, Singh said he was solidly with Lalu for the last 32 years after the death of Karpoori Thakur." But, now it is all over".
Last month he had resigned as vice-president of the party also following the induction of his political rival Rama Singh in the party. Rama, a strong man of Vaishali, had defeated Singh in 2014 elections.
The veteran Socialist leader was feeling uncomfortable in the organisation since the younger son of Lalu, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, took over the leadership and started ignoring him. Raghuwansh had written a letter to Lalu in January this year and had complained against Tejashwi 's style of functioning and alleged humiliations to senior party leaders.
He had gone to Ranchi also to register his protest against Tejashwi.
He was upset with the "dictatorship" of the party president Jagdanand Singh in Bihar. Raghuwansh had regretted the new party president was behaving like an autocrat and had closed the entrance of the party for common workers. His complaints and grievances were ignored.
His family members today said he was feeling hurt over the statement of the elder son of Lalu.Tejpratap Yadav,who had commented that taking out water in a LOTA from the Ocean will have no effect on the party.He compared the veteran leader and contemporary of Lalu as LOTA>
Departure of Raghuwansh from the RJD will have adverse effect on the political fortunes of two sons of Lalu who are MLAs from the constitutency represented by Raghuwansh and his supporters since 1977.He enjoyed considerable influence on the Rajput voters of the area and their opposition to Tejashwi and Tejpratap in the coming assembly elections may harm the junior Lalus.
Tejpratap is already in trouble with the announcement that his estranged wife-Aishwarya will contest the elections against him.Now,Tejpratap has decided to shift to Hasanpur,a Yadav dominated constitutency in neighblouring Samastipur from Mahua in Vaishali.
Raghuwansh had started his career in electoral ;politics in 1977,the same year when Lalu was first elected to Lok Sabha.Raghuwansh was energy minister in Karpoori Thakur ministry,later chairman of Bihar Legislative Council.
He was elected to Lok Sabha four times and was union minister for rural development in UPA government.He had piloted the now popular National rural employment guarantee Bill which later became MNRGEA.
Loss of RJD will become gain for JDU
He is expected to join JDU after his discharge from the hospital,JDU sources indicated.Feelers have been sent from BJP also.
From his hospital bed in the Kelly's Bungalow at Ranchi, Lalu Prasad wrote to Raghuwansh Prasad Singh tonight: “Aap kahin nahi ja rahe hain. Baith kar mil jul kar baat karenge (You are not going any where. We will talk).” Lalu also said he could not believe it was written by Raghuwansh Babu.
