In a major setback to the Rashtriya Janata Dal, five of its members in the Bihar Legislative Council resigned from the political party right ahead of Legislative council elections in Bihar. The MLCs have reportedly joined its rival Janata Dal-United(JDU). All the 5 members of the Legislative council met the Chairman of Legislative council Avadesh Narayan Singh and handed him their resignations on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh who is a founding-member of the RJD and the party’s national vice-president stepped down from his position. He had been a Union Minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet. However, it is not clear whether Singh has joined JDU or not as he is under treatment in AIIMS Patna due to COVID-19.
Reportedly, he was unhappy with mafia-turned politician Rama Singh joining the RJD. Rama Singh was earlier associated with the Lok Janshakti party and had defeated the veteran leader in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Vaishali constituency. Apart from Singh, Radha Charan Shah, Sanjay Prasad, Qamar Alam, Dilip Ray, and Ranvijay Singh are the five members of the legislative council who resigned from their designated positions.
As per reports, the Rashtriya Janata Dal had only eight members in the legislative council in which two-thirds of the members have resigned from their designated posts. 29 seats out of the 75 member Bihar Legislative council is vacant. After recent developments, JDU has emerged as the largest party in the state council.
The MLC elections on 9 seats are scheduled to be held on July 6. Recently, a former JDU MLC Iqbal Ansari left the party to join RJD. JDU leader Ashok Chaudhary had been making claims that RJD would face a big jolt before MLC elections.