By Alok Mohit
Patna: Infighting within the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar has once again come to the fore with the party serving a notice on its former national president RCP Singh over “discrepancies in immovable property registered in his name and that of his family” between 2013and 2022.
In the notice sent to Singh, who was once a confidante of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, JD(U) state unit chief Umesh Singh Kushwaha has asked him to send his reply to the party at the earliest.
The notice claimed that the party had received complaints about several irregularities in the property that Singh and his family had acquired. It accused the former JD(U) national president of amassing vast property in the name of his wife and two daughters from 2013 to 2019 and not declaring it in his 2016 Rajya Sabha election affidavit.
“According to a complaint received from two JD(U) leaders from Nalanda district, you and your family have amassed vast immovable property from 2013 to 2022. Many discrepancies are visible in the property you and family have acquired. You have been a bureaucrat and a JD(U) worker with our leader Nitish Kumar for a long time. The honourable leader made you a Rajya Sabha member twice, party general secretary, party’s national president and a Union minister. You are aware that the chief minister has zero tolerance towards corruption and despite being in public life for so many years he did not amass wealth,” the notice said.
A former civil servant, Singh had worked as Nitish Kumar’s principal secretary. After taking voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service in 2010, Singh joined JDU and became its national president in 2020. In July 2021, he was inducted into the Union Cabinet.
Amid rumours of his strained ties with Kumar, Singh recently stepped down as Union minister after the party denied him another term in the Rajya Sabha.
