Khushwaha

chief Mamata Banerjee and DMK chief MK Stalin holding talks with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The meeting was held a day a day ahead of the results of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram Assembly polls and the winter session of Parliament on Tuesday. Former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda, also a Janata Dal (Secular) leader, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, National Conference supremo Farooq Abdullah, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI leaders Sudhakar Reddy and D Raja, Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) leader Sharad Yadav and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha’s (JVM) Babulal Marandi also attended the meeting held in Parliament annexe.

In a strongly worded two-page resignation letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kushwaha said he was “dejected and betrayed” by his leadership. “There has been a fundamental conflict in what you have promised to the people before elections and what you have actually delivered,” Kushwaha wrote in his letter. “The fact of the matter is that under your leadership grave and unprecedented injustice have been committed upon Bihar, I say this with sense of deep regret and sorrow.”

He accused the Prime Minister of ignoring the cause of social justice to implement the agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ideological mentor, not fulfilling the commitment of special status to Bihar, and conspiring to shelve the publication of the caste census report, among others.

Kushwaha said he was disappointed and dismayed with Modi’s “opaque” style of functioning and “non democratic” leadership.

“You have systematically dismantled the functioning of the Cabinet…,” Kushwaha wrote to Modi. “The Union Cabinet has been reduced to a mere rubber stamp, simply endorsing your decision without any deliberation.”

Kushwaha was NDA ally in the previous parliamentary election, which Nitish Kumar contested separately after walking out of the BJP-led alliance over Modi’s election as the campaign committee chief of his party.

Kumar, who had an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the 2015 assembly election, returned to the NDA last year, creating discomfort to Kushwaha. Both claim to have sway over OBC voters in Bihar.

Kushwaha contested three parliamentary seats and was offered to take a cut this time, to accommodate Kumar. The BJP, which contested 30 seats, and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan, which contested seven, too, decided to spare some seats from their kitty to accommodate the Janata Dal (United).

“Contesting fewer seats would have meant that our voice would not have been heard inside Parliament,” he said.

Kushwaha said his party has three option left in front of it – to contest the next parliamentary alliance on its own, to team up with the grand alliance that the RJD and the Congress are trying to cobble up in Bihar, or to float a new third front.

“We will take a call after a consultation within our party. There is still time left for the parliamentary election. But, we will take a decision soon,” he told reporters at a press conference at his residence.

Kushwaha had attempted to reach out to BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought appointments with them to address his concerns, but found them less than willing to engage him in negotiations. BJP leaders, sources said, had taken note of reports that he had been in touch with rivals and had already sensed that he had made up his mind.

Sources said the main agenda of the Opposition meeting was to chart the future course of action for forging opposition unity and a front of non-BJP parties to take on the BJP.

The BJP dubbed the opposition meet as a “photo opportunity”, with its spokesperson Sambit Patra alleging it is a meeting of the “corrupt” to “save themselves”.

BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya took a dim view of the meeting and said they should first declare a prime ministerial candidate before thinking of ousting the Modi government. of banks is not a bogus one.

The 62-year-old former boss of Kingfisher Airlines has been on bail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April last year. He has contested that the extradition case against him is “politically motivated” and the loans he has been accused of defrauding on were sought to keep his now-defunct airline afloat.

“I did not borrow a single rupee. The borrower was Kingfisher Airlines. Money was lost due to a genuine and sad business failure. Being held as guarantor is not fraud,” he said in a post on Twitter recently.

“I have offered to repay 100 per cent of the principal amount to them. Please take it,” the flamboyant businessman tweeted earlier.

A joint team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) led by CBI joint director A Sai Manohar are in the United Kingdom for the court proceedings.

VIJAY MALLYA, 62, HAS HAS CONTESTED THAT THE EXTRADITION CASE AGAINST HIM IS “POLITICALLY MOTIVATED”

ruling BJP, while analysts warned that a bigger crash may be in store on Tuesday due to sudden resignation of the RBI governor combined with the actual election results.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in a statement, attacked the Modi government for “the sinister attack on autonomy of Reserve Bank of India” that led to Patel’s exit. “We deprecate the systematic attack by the government on India’s economy through a select band of government nominees arbitrarily dictating the monetary policies and compromising RBI’s institutional integrity,” he said.

“Quite clearly the resignation of Urjit Patel shows that nothing has changed,” Yashwant Sinha, a former finance minister and member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party till early this year, told CNBC-TV18. “The resignation is a clear sign of the government trying to interfere with the working of the RBI.”

Former finance minister P Chidambaram said he was saddened but not surprised.

The last meeting of the RBI board held on November 19 was the “day of reckoning” and Patel should have resigned on that day, he said. “Dr Patel may have thought that government will re-trace its steps. I knew it would not. Good he quit before another humiliating meeting… Saddened, not surprised, by Dr Urjit Patel’s resignation. No self respecting scholar or academic can work in this government,” he said.

TIMING SHOCK

Patel resigned before results from crucial state elections are declared on Tuesday and ahead of an RBI board meeting on Friday.

“The timing just before this week’s board meeting suggests that there’s still a huge gap between the government and RBI positions on key issues,” said A Prasanna, head of research at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership in Mumbai.

Patel’s resignation is expected to roil financial markets on Tuesday. Investors will want to know who is Patel’s replacement and how that will affect the direction of financial and monetary policy, analysts said.

“Markets certainly will be concerned unless there is further clarification that comes through tonight,” said R Sivakumar, head of fixed income at Axis Mutual Fund. “I think tomorrow and over the next few days we can expect heightened volatility in the markets.”