KUSHWAHA EXITS NDA AS OPPN MEETS ON EVE OF RESULTS

Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) president Upendra Kushwaha resigned from the Union council of minister and walked out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Monday even as top leaders of over a dozen Opposition parties met as part of attempts to forge an united front to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Kushwaha, an OBC leader from Bihar, said all his options, including teaming up with the grand alliance of Opposition parties, were open.

A junior minister for human resource development, Kushwaha was upset over a series of event over the last one year, but a proposal to cut his share of seat within the NDA to accommodate Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar appeared to be the immediate trigger behind his revolt. Kushwaha and Kumar are friends-turned-foe.

Kushwaha announced his divorce from the NDA at a press conference in Delhi prefacing it with a list of difficulties and betrayals that he claimed he has had to endure as a member of the alliance in Bihar. “They will not open their account,” he said, referring to the BJP and Nitish Kumar, who he alleged, were out to finish his party.

The meeting of Opposition parties, which the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) skipped, was preceded by parleys among the leaders, with Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Chandrababu Naidu meeting West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC)

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