Upendra Kushwaha resigns as Bihar MLC

Upendra Kushwaha resigned as a member of the Bihar legislative council on Saturday, less than a week after quitting Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and floating a new outfit -- Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal (RLJD).

Kushwaha handed over his resignation to the council's Chairman Devesh Chandra Thakur, with a couple of days to go for a five-week-long budget session of the bicameral legislature.

After resigning, Kushwaha, who has been lauded for his "courage" by Kumar's abandoned ally BJP, took a swipe at the chief minister.

"Respected Chief Minister," tweeted Kushwaha in Hindi, and wrote a Sanskrit verse, which can be roughly translated to "I offer back to you what belongs to you".

Also Read | Good Kushwaha left, exit won't affect JD-U: Nitish Kumar

Kushwaha returned to the JD(U) in 2021, merging his Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, and was rewarded immediately with the fancy designation of parliamentary board chief. Soon, he got nominated to the legislative council which brought to an end his political wilderness.

Kushwaha's decision to resign has drawn praise from BJP leaders such as Ravi Shankar Prasad and Sanjay Jaiswal who have been of the view that being a nominated member of the council he could not have faced disqualification even after quitting the JD(U).

Kushwaha, who had served in the first Narendra Modi government, quit the NDA a couple of months ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when he joined the "Mahagathbandhan".

In his Tweet, Kushwaha said he was "feeling light" after resigning and "having a pleasant feeling akin to coming out of a chakravyuh (a labyrinthine military formation)".

The former protégé of the JD(U) boss, who has fought and made up with his mentor more than once, believes that the aging leader has capitulated before current ally RJD, which wants its supremo Lalu Prasad's younger son Tejashwi Yadav to become the next chief minister.

"Guving up yachana (supplication) I am embarking upon the path of run (struggle)," added Kushwaha, loosely borrowing from a famous poem of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar.

The RLJD chief will be launching a state-wide tour on February 27, as part of what he calls an effort to protect aspirations of "Luv-Kush" (Kurmis and Koeris) and extremely backward classes which, he alleges, are under attack from the "nepotistic" RJD.