Rashtriya Lok Samta Party is a political party in India led by Upendra Kushwaha. It was launched on 3 March 2013 and is based in the state of Bihar. The party was formed in opposition to Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal. It has faced multiple rebellions and desertions since 2015.
History
Background
was dismissed from the Janata Dal in 2007. Kushwaha founded the Rashtriya Samata Party in February 2009. The party was formed in the backdrop of alleged marginalisation of the Koeri caste and autocratic rule by the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar. The formation of the party was supported by Chhagan Bhujbal, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra. In November 2009, the party was merged into the Janata Dal with the mending of ties between Kushwaha and Kumar. On 4 January 2013, Upendra Kushwaha who at the time was a Rajya Sabha member resigned from the Janata Dal. He alleged that the Nitish model had failed and that the law and order situation was becoming as bad as it had been 7 years ago. He further alleged that the Nitish Kumar runs his government through autocratic means and that he had turned the Janata Dal into his "pocket organisation".
Formation and early years
Kushwaha launched the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party in a rally in Gandhi Maidan, Patna on 3 March 2013. At the time of formation, Kushwaha had stated that the party will attempt to overthrow the National Democratic Alliance in the state of Bihar. However, following the departure of the Janata Dal from the alliance, the party joined the National Democratic Alliance. In the subsequent 2014 Indian general election, it contested 3 parliamentary seats in Bihar as part of the alliance and won all of them. Upendra Kushwaha was elected from the Karakat constituency and was appointed as the Minister of State of Human Resource Development. In the following 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election, the party contested 23 out of 243 seats as part of the alliance but was able to have its representative elected from only two seats.
Factionalism and desertions
From late 2015 onward, the party was divided into two factions; one led by Upendra Kushwaha and the other led by Arun Kumar, the member of parliament from the Jahanabad constituency. In 2016, the faction of Arun Kumar held a meeting which announced the replacement of Kushwaha with Arun Kumar as the leader of the party. Lalan Paswan, a member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly from the party had also attended the meeting. Kumar claimed that his faction was the real representatives of the party.and decided to move to the Election Commission of India staking claim to the party name and symbol while further accusing Kushwaha of adopting autocratic means of running the party. In retaliation, the Kushwaha faction constituting the disciplinary committee of the party recommended the suspension of both Arun Kumar and Lalan Paswan for "indiscipline and anti-party activities". The disciplinary committee was headed by Ram Kumar Sharma, the other member of parliament from the party. In June 2018, the party formally split with the faction of Arun Kumar forming the Rashtriya Samata Party. In the same year, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party left the National Democratic Alliance. The party had been involved in an argument with the alliance over seat sharing arrangement for the upcoming general election while targeting the Janata Dal which had rejoined the alliance. This led to rebellion from all the three state legislators of the party, who declared that they represented the real party, raising objections that they intended to remain in the alliance. The legislators were at the time attempting to get Sudhanshu Shekhar included in the Council of Ministers of Bihar which was led by Nitish Kumar. Shekhar was one of the legislators of the state party in Bihar. However on 20 December 2018, Upendra Kushwaha declared that the party had joined the opposition United Progressive Alliance. Earlier in 2017, the Nagmani led Samras Samaj Party had been merged into the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party. Nagmani was subsequently made the national executive of the party. In February 2019, he was sacked from the post for alleged "anti-party" activities following which he resigned from the party on grounds that Upendra Kushwaha was allegedly selling party tickets for the upcoming election. In the 2019 Indian general election, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party contested on 5 parliamentary seats as part of the United Progressive Alliance with Upendra Kushwaha contesting from two seats. The party was however unable to win on a single seat while the alliance won just one seat in Bihar. Following the election, all the three formerly dissident state legislators of the party joined the Janata Dal.
