Patna
RCP Singh, a former principal secretary to the Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, on Sunday took over as the new President of the JD-U, replacing Nitish, the national party president since April 2016 after the removal of Sharad Yadav.
Nitish made the announcement of his successor at the national conference of JD-U at Karpoori Thakur auditorium. Nitish said since he believed in one man, one post principle, so he decided to quit the top post. He named RCP Singh as the new president. The motion to appoint Singh as new president was instantly approved by the national council members.
RCP Singh, an IAS of 1984 batch (UP), was secretary to Nitish when he was the railways minister and when the latter became the CM in 2005, he was appointed his principal secretary. Later, Nitish inducted him into JD-U and got him elected to Rajya Sabha in 2015.
He was made the secretary general of the party 5 years back. RCP is from the same Kurmi caste and Nalanda district like Nitish. One of his daughters is an IPS officer and was in the controversy at Munger from where she was shifted on the order of the Election Commission. Nitish ignored the claims of party veteran KC Tyagi, also the principal secretary general and Bashistha Narain Singh, the state JD-U president, also aspiring for the party’s top post.
With his appointment as the JD-U national president, RCP Singh has little hope for being inducted into the union cabinet. Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan and Santosh Kushwaha, the party MPs, may be accommodated in the union cabinet, sources said in Patna.
Patna
Admitting the JD-U leadership was pained at the recent defections of 6 party MLAs to BJP in Arunachal, the principal secretary general, KC Tyagi, on Sunday said the party would contest the assembly elections in the four states going to polls next year. The newly-elected party president, RCP Singh, has been authorised to prepare a strategy for the JD-U participation in the assembly elections outside Bihar. Releasing the nine-page resolution, Tyagi said the recent developments in Arunachal were unexpected and coalition dharma was not followed. The resolution said, “The parties in the alliance should follow the Atal model of alliance code as in case of Arunachal, the code has been breached. It said the mutual trust and co-operation were the basic foundations of the coalition code.
There should be regular communication between the alliance partners for maintaining the alliance.”
Tyagi was unhappy with the role of the BJP during the recent Bihar assembly election on the actions of the Lok Janshakti Party, which engineered the JD-U candidates’ defeat. He said, “The BJP did not act against the LJP and the misinformation campaign of LJP against Nitish was allowed to go uninterrupted.”
