5 reasons Kushwaha is set to be kicked out of NDA

The vexed issue of seat-sharing talks among the NDA constituents seems to have been settled.

The BJP-led alliance, it has been reliably learnt, has decided not to leave any seat out of 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar for Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha's outfit RLSP.

As per the pact, which has now been finalised and confirmed by a top saffron party leader, the BJP and JD(U) will contest 17 seats each while leaving the rest six seats for Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

Kushwaha, who is Union minister of state for HRD, besides being the president of his pocket organisation Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), is to be blamed for the shabby treatment that was meted out to him.

The top BJP leadership is believed to be miffed with Kushwaha for five main reasons.

One: he did not meet BJP chief Amit Shah when the BJP president called him to discuss seat-sharing talks in New Delhi in October.

Two: the day when Shah announced that BJP and JD (U) would contest seats in Bihar on a 50:50 basis, Kushwaha met Tejashwi Yadav, the Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly.

Three: Kushwaha made baseless charges against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar alleging that the Bihar CM called him 'neech', while what Nitish had said was that the "level of political discourse should not brought down to a low level".

Nitish was responding to a query on whether he ever told Kushwaha that he will relinquish the post of chief minister after 2020.

Four: Kushwaha, while serving as a Union minister, has been making statements against the NDA — both the central and state governments.

Five: Kushwaha recently met Sharad Yadav, a friend-turn-foe of Nitish and Narendra Modi. This meeting took place when Kushwaha went to Delhi to meet Shah but instead opted to meet the Grand Alliance leader.

"Chale jayein toh achcha hai. Chutkara mile (If he leaves, it will be good riddance)," said Bihar BJP president Nityanand Rai, while speaking to DH, on the imminent exit of Kushwaha from the NDA.

The Congress has, meanwhile, extended an olive branch to Kushwaha and asked him to make up his mind fast and decide on joining the Mahagatbandhan (Grand Alliance).

"Decide fast. Time is running out. You have nothing more left in the NDA," one of the AICC spokespersons Prem Chandra Mishra told Kushwaha here on Wednesday.