The denial of the third term of Rajya Sabha to Ram Chandra Prasad (RCP) Singh, who is a minister of state in the Modi cabinet and the only JDU representative in the Union Ministry by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, will not have any impact on the party or alter its relationship with the BJP which needs the support of all its allies to ensure that its Presidential nominee wins.
On Sunday evening, despite hectic lobbying by RCP Singh with all relevant parties who could have helped him, including a one to one meeting with Nitish Kumar last week, Singh, a career bureaucrat, was denied the ticket and in his place, Nitish Kumar decided to send JDU Jharkhand state president Kheeru Mahto to the Rajya Sabha.
Just like Nitish and Singh, Mahto also belongs to the Kurmi caste. In the runup to the RS nomination, in which the JDU can send one candidate, apparently on the directions of Singh’s supporters, the news was floated in Patna that a large section of JDU MLAs were with RCP and they were planning to break the party if he was not given another term.
However, ultimately, all this proved to be baseless rumours as Singh found no support from any party leader once it was announced that he had been denied a third term thereby confirming the readings of Patna based observers that he was a leader with no support base in the party.
Speculations that the BJP might send him to the Rajya Sabha on its own are likely to prove baseless rumours. The last date of nomination is Tuesday and the BJP is not in a position to anger Nitish Kumar by sending Singh to the RS despite Singh’s claim that he was among the closest of ministers to Modi.
On Monday, Singh was not invited to the nomination of Mahto which was attended by every top leader of the JDU and the BJP in Patna including the Bihar chief minister.
Till last year, RCP was considered the political heir to Nitish Kumar, but on Monday evening, he was relegated to the position of a common worker of the JDU.
Singh, who easily was the most influential ‘bureaucrat’ of the state, even after his retirement, controlled the executive and political wings of the ruling party in Bihar till very recently.
Nitish, to ‘finish' him off completely and to show he was now just a marginalised leader, did not invite him to the nomination gathering despite Singh stating to the media that he would go if asked by the Chief Minister, but Nitish chose not to give him even this opportunity.
Nitish Kumar on Monday even did not attach any significance to RCP’s statement that he would meet the PM and seek his advice on continuation in the cabinet. Nitish trivialised it by saying that RCP is a minister till July 6 when his term in Rajya Sabha expires.
RCP was expecting that JDU legislators would support him, but none approached him once the party president, Lallan Singh announced his denial of ticket to him on the ground that RCP was already allowed two terms of 12 years.
As the evening ended, there was nothing but silence at RCP’s Strand Road Bungalow.
