After Rout, RJD MLA Asks Tejashwi to Resign as Leader of Oppn

Alleging parivarwad has cost the RJD, the MLA claimed the party will break if his demand is not fulfilled.

Lalu Prasad Yadav with Tejashwi Yadav. 

(Photo: PTI)

The simmering discontent in RJD has come to the fore following its rout in Lok Sabha election with senior party legislator Maheshwar Prasad Yadav on Monday, 27 May, asking Tejashwi Yadav to resign from the post of Leader of Opposition (LOP) taking moral responsibility for the drubbing.

Alleging that parivarwad (family politics) has cost the party the most, Yadav, RJD MLA from Gaighat assembly constituency in Muzaffarpur district, claimed the party will break if his demand is not fulfilled.

“As a party MLA, I would request Tejaswhi Yadav to resign from the post of LOP taking moral responsibility for the Lok Sabha poll debacle and appoint any other senior party leader hailing from a caste other than Yadav to the post of LOP, failing which the party will have to face crushing defeat in 2020 assembly elections,” Yadav told reporters.

RJD is the second party of the five member-mahagathbandhan to face the heat of resounding defeat at the hands of NDA in Bihar.

Except for one seat of Kisanganj won by the Congress, the BJP, JD(U) and LJP combine (NDA) bagged 39 out of a total 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.

Earlier on Sunday, Upendra Kushwaha-led RLSP’s three legislators – two MLAs and one MLC – merged with the JD(U) following the massive drubbings.

Maheshwar Prasad Yadav warned the party leadership that the legislature party will break if his demand is not fulfilled.

“If my demand (to appoint someone else as LOP) is not fulfilled, then the legislature party will break as the party’s several legislators are with me,” Yadav claimed.

Asked whether he has the support of two-thirds of the RJD legislature party to avoid disqualification under anti-defection law, Yadav answered in the affirmative saying that he has the support of large number of party MLAs as no one wants to board a “sinking ship”. “But please, don’t ask me the names and numbers at the moment,” he added.

Furthermore, asked whether he would attend the two-day RJD meeting scheduled to be held on 28 and 29 May to discuss the poll debacle, the rebel MLA said that he would not participate in the meeting till his demand (of Tejashwi’s resignation) is met.

In Close Company of Nitish Kumar

Yadav, who has been seen in close company of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar in the recent past, said Lalu Prasad’s affection for his family cost the party the most, and the party (RJD) would not have staged a comeback in the 2015 Assembly polls if RJD did not stitch an alliance with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U).

It was because of Nitish Kumar that the RJD came to power in 2015 in the state, he said, adding, “But the party supremo (Lalu Yadav) again chose to anoint two of his sons as Deputy CM and minister in the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance government ignoring senior party leaders.”

When Nitish Kumar parted ways, the RJD chief again foisted his son Tejashwi and wife Rabri Devi as LOPs in the lower and upper houses respectively, he further said.

“I had opposed the party chief’s move to make Rabri Devi the CM in 1997 and had suggested to him to appoint any other senior leader of the party as CM but he ignored my opinion.”

“There was a time when the party was reduced to 22 MLAs and 4 MPs. But the people in the recently held general elections have thoroughly rejected RJD for carrying out parivarwad politics,” the MLA added.