Nitish Kumar’s soul mate RCP Singh joins BJP; he broke ranks with Cabinet berth
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, May 11: Former Union Minister RCP Singh was an architect of brand Nitish Kumar. Sharing cate bond, Singh and Kumar soon became close pals in the Ministry of Railways where the former IAS officer helped his political master gain fame with a slew of reforms in railway ticketing, which had been a nightmare for the passengers.
“Caste (Kurmi) made Kumar curious about Singh. Soon, they were the best pals. With Kumar being part of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet, while his bete noire Lalu Prasad Yadav held sway over the Bihar politics, RCP Singh shined with his political acumen. The two were inseparable,” said a close aide of RCP Singh.
After Kumar parted ways with Yadav to form his own Samata Party in the company of late George Fernandes with the active blessings of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1996, Bihar began witnessing a new social engineering, as non-Yadav backward castes began looking for alternative. Singh played a key role in the emergence of Kumar as an alternative to Lalu-Rabri regime.
But the formation of the council of ministers in 2019 following the BJP’s sweeping victory in the Lok Sabha elections changed the personal equations of Kumar and RCP Singh. The JD (U) had refused to join the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Kumar had held parleys with Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, and he had come out miffed with the offer of once Cabinet and one Minister of state berth.
After the 2019 Lok Sabha election verdict, RCP Singh held talks with the BJP leadership over joining the council of ministers. The BJP repeated the same offer, as had already been made to Kumar in the fag end of the first term of the Modi government. RCP Singh was the president of the Janata Dal (United). He gracefully accepted the offer of the BJP, and reported back the matter to Kumar.
RCP Singh became the Cabinet Minister. He offered to make Rajeev Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh, a Bhumihar leader, the MoS. Lallan Singh refused the offer to take a junior post, which for him was below his stature. The event drew a wedge between RCP Singh and Kumar, which only kept growing.
On Thursday, RCP Singh joined the BJP at the party headquarters in the presence of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who had been the Bihar in-charge of the party. He was livid at Kumar, mocking his national ambition. “He (Kumar) was PM. He is PM. He will be PM,” said RCP Singh, while explaining that PM meant ‘Paltimar (who changes flanks)’.
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