Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) president and Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha resigned from the Narendra Modi government on Monday, after months of being disenchanted at being allegedly sidelined by the BJP and Nitish Kumar's JD(U).
Kushwaha's resignation and his party's expected departure from the NDA could spark a realignment of political forces in Bihar as he had hinted previously he was not averse to tying up with Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD.
आज 2.00 PM, #दिल्ली (78, लोधी एस्टेट) में संवाददाता सम्मेलन को संबोधित करूँगा।@News18Bihar @ZeeBiharNews @abpnewshindi @ANI @the_hindu @htTweets @ZeeNewsHindi @abpnewstv @IndianExpress @ETVBharatBihar @DDNewsLive @aajtak @ndtv @DainikBhaskar @JagranNews @cnnbrk @ETNOWlive
— Upendra Kushwaha (@UpendraRLSP) December 10, 2018
Shortly before his resignation from the Modi government was announced, Kushwaha announced on his social media handles he would conducting a press conference at 2pm on Monday. Other media reports claim Kushwaha could attend a meeting of senior leaders of major opposition parties happening on Monday that aims to build an anti-BJP front.
The RLSP chief has been targeting the BJP and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a key ally of the ruling party, for weeks.
Kushwaha had been upset with the BJP after it asserted that the RLSP would not be given more than two seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, even as it went out of its way to accommodate Kumar by agreeing that the saffron party and the JD(U) would fight an equal number of seats. Kushwaha had given the BJP a deadline of November 30 to decide on allocating the RLSP a “respectable” number of seats for the Lok Sabha elections.
