Faced with revolt, RLSP chief in touch with Congress

PATNA: RLSP chief and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha on Saturday met senior Congress functionary Ahmed Patel at his residence in New Delhi, even as his party in Bihar seemed to be headed for a split. All three RLSP legislators on Saturday announced that they will remain with the NDA.
The three legislators — MLAs Sudhanshu Shekhar and Lalan Paswan and lone MLC Sanjiv Singh Shyam — said Kushwaha took the decision of quitting NDA while pursuing “personal interests”.“We are with the NDA from the beginning. We have no relations with Kushwahaji as he has been more interested in his personal gains and never paid heed to party workers,” said Shyam.
The legislators went on to claim that they would announce that they represent the real RLSP. Staking claims on the party, Sudhanshu said, “We are not defectors, we represent the real RLSP. We represent the sentiments of most workers and office-bearers of the party. We will soon approach ECI with our claim.”
They also pitched for a ministerial birth for Sudhanshu, a first-time MLA, in the Nitish Kumar government. They made a joint statement to this effect at a press meeting in Patna on Saturday.
Kushwaha is likely to meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi next week, RLSP sources said. “There are chances of a meeting of our party president with top leaders in Congress high command over the next few days,” RLSP national general secretary Madhav Anand told TOI on Saturday evening.
The move came five days after Kushwaha announced his party’s exit from the BJP-led NDA, which he had joined in 2013. Kushwaha quit the NDA on the issue of possible denial of a “respectable number” of seats for his party in Bihar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for neglecting Bihar.
Rumours of rift in the RLSP had surfaced after Sudhanshu and Lalan turned up at the legislator party meeting of the BJP during the winter session of the assembly last month.
Meanwhile, RLSP has accused Nitish and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi of causing feud in the party. “Nitish and Modi are directly responsible for creating a divide in our party. Nitish has a habit of breaking opposition parties. He did the same by luring Ashok Choudhary to his side. But our party will remain intact and those who are taking separate path are doing it with their own political motives,” Madhav said.