PTI, NEW DELHI/PATNA RLSP president Upendra Kushwaha Monday severed ties with the BJP and resigned from the Union council of ministers, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of reducing Cabinet to a “rubber stamp”, “betraying” backward classes and giving Bihar only “jumlas”.
Making the announcement a day ahead of Parliament’s winter session, the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party leader from Bihar said he is open to joining the opposition alliance, which includes Lalu Prasad’s RJD and the Congress.
Though the decision was expected, it did not go down well within his own party with both the RLSP MLAs in Bihar saying they would remain in the BJP-led NDA.
The Bihar BJP came out with a point by point rebuttal of the allegations levelled by Kushwaha, the former minister of state for HRD.
Kushwaha sharply attacked Modi on a host of issues in his resignation letter, which was also released to the media.
He said he felt “betrayed and dejected” by the prime minister’s leadership and alleged that “fixing” political opponents and not working for the poor had become the government’s priority.
“We are aghast over Kushwaha’s charge that he was being humiliated by the BJP. The BJP never treated him with disdain even after it had become apparent that he was losing grip over his own small party,” BJP Bihar unit vice-president Samrat Chaudhary said in Patna.
“Despite having only three MPs, including himself, he was given a ministerial berth. His party underwent a crisis two years ago when he had to suspend one of his fellow MPs and one of his two MLAs,” Chaudhary said.
