'Lallan Singh was forced to quit'

'Singh was forced to submit his resignation to Nitish Kumar few days ago and convinced to announce his offer to resign at the party meeting.'

Ending the week-long speculation, Janata Dal-United national President Rajeev Ranjan 'Lallan' Singh resigned his post on Friday, December 29, 2023, at the JD-U national executive meeting in New Delhi.

Until early Friday, JD-U leaders repeatedly claimed that Singh would continue as the party president. In his speech at the party meeting on Friday, Singh offered to resign, a move designed to look like it was his decision to quit and not forced upon him.

"Lallan Singh was forced to submit his resignation to Nitish Kumar few days ago and convinced to announce his offer to resign at the party meeting. This is part of a political plan within the party for his honourable exit," a JD-U leader close to Singh, who attended the party meeting in New Delhi, tells this correspondent on the telephone.

A JD-U general secretary, who is known to be close to Nitish Kumar, says it was pre-planned and decided days earlier that Lallan Singh would offer to resign at the meeting to make way for Nitish Kumar to take full command of the party.

"There is no surprise in this development," the JD-U general secretary says, "All the party leaders and workers want Nitish Kumar, our undisputed leader, our sarvanaya neta."

Lallan Singh is the fourth party president Nitish Kumar has gotten rid of -- George Fernandes, Sharad Yadav and R C P Singh being the ones earlier.

After Singh resigned and proposed that Nitish Kumar take command of the party or authorise him to appoint a new party president at the meeting, it was unanimously passed by members of the party national executive with loud applause.

Nitish Kumar was the JD-U president from 2016 to 2020.

Soon after Lallan Singh resigned, senior JD-U leader and Bihar Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary confirmed that the resignation had been accepted and a proposal passed that Nitish Kumar would be the party president.

Another JD-U leader and Bihar Minister Ashok Choudhary said, 'Nitish Kumar is our brand and everything in the party belong to him.'

According to JD-U sources, Nitish Kumar and Lallan Singh arrived together at the Constitutuon Club, the meeting venue, after spending over an hour at the Bihar CM's residence in New Delhi.

This was their second meeting in 24 hours in Delhi.

In his speech, Lallan Singh said since he will contest the Lok Sabha election, he would be busy strategising his re-election and hence he had decided to resign, proposing Nitish Kumar as his successor.

Nitish Kumar and Lallan Singh have been remarkably close for 30 years, but cracks in their relationship appeared after Singh appeared to draw close to Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad Yadav and his younger son, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, in recent months.

Some JD-U leaders are said to have warned Nitish Kumar that Lallan Singh may split the JD-U to help the RJD form a government on its own.

Nitish Kumar was no longer confident that Lallan Singh would run the JD-U as a close associate of over three decades, hence the move to replace him.

"Lallan Singh was a caretaker in the JD-U," says state Bharatiya Janata Party President Samrat Choudhary, "Nitish Kumar will now run the party directly and not as a de facto leader."

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com