RCP Singh, former JDU leader and union minister, joined the BJP on Thursday. Singh, a former aide of Nitish Kumar, was a flash point between BJP and JDU during the NDA government in Bihar.
Taking a dig at Nitish, Singh said that the Bihar chief minister will remain a “PM contender” forever. “PM means ‘palti maar’ — Nitish has always changed sides. He’s fooling the Bihar public,” Singh said as he joined the BJP.
Singh had an acrimonious exit from JDU after the party refused to renominate him as a member of the Rajya Sabha. He was the union steel minister in the NDA government and lost his ministerial berth as a result. The party soon started proceedings for disproportionate assets against him, after which he quit the JDU. Singh, a former bureaucrat, has also been president of the JDU at one point.
Joining the BJP in the presence of Dharmendra Pradhan, Singh said, “Can you tell me the name of another chief minister who is in three different states in three days? Why is he so interested in Opposition leaders and not in the people of Bihar.”
BJP OBC Morcha national beherhal secretary Nikhil Anand said that Singh’s joining is a big bump for the BJP in Bihar. “This also shows how the Nitish government’s support base is eroding. The JDU has a bad reputation for treating its former presidents poorly — look at the case of George Fernandes or of Sharad Yadav. Singh is an addition to that,” Anand said.
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