New Delhi, December 20: RLSP president Upendra Kushwaha has joined the grand alliance, also known as Mahagathbandhan, in Bihar, senior Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel announced on Thursday. "We had said that we have many options and UPA was one of them. The wholeheartedness shown by Rahul Gandhi and Lalu Yadav is one of the reasons I joined but the biggest reason I'm here is the people of Bihar," Kushwaha said on joining the grand alliance.

Addressing the media, Kushwaha said he had been consistently raising issues of social justice but an attempt was made to weaken his party by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who he said got "strength" from Delhi, an apparent reference to the BJP. "Nitish Kumar is a big conspirator. He got help from Delhi government. He decided that Kushwaha has to be demolished so that he will not be able to take up the issues of Bihar," he said.

Kushwaha also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised during the 2014 election campaign that he would address the issues of education, jobs and healthcare for the people of Bihar. But on all fronts, he failed to fulfil his promises. There was a difference between his talk and action. "I never believed there could be so much difference," he said. Kushwaha went on to praise Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the manner he promised loan waiver for farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and the "first step" was the writing off of the loans.

Kushwaha had resigned as a Minister in the Narendra Modi government on December 10 and his party had also quit the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. He had been unhappy since the BJP president Amit Shah announced that the saffron party and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) would contest an equal number of seats in 2019 general elections.

BJP reportedly offered RLSP two Lok Sabha seats for the 2019 election, but Kushwaha was not ready to settle for anything less than four seats. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA had won 31 out of 40 parliamentary seats. While the JD(U), which quit the alliance just before the polls, could bag just two seats, RLSP had bagged three.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi and Sharad Yadav of Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) were present at the time of the announcement on Upendra Kushwaha's induction into the grand alliance.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 20, 2018 04:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).