Munger MP Lalan Singh replaces RCP as JD(U) national president

PATNA: Munger MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh, better known as Lalan Singh (66), was on Saturday nominated as the national president of JD(U) at its national executive committee meeting in Delhi.
Union minister and outgoing JD(U) chief RCP Singh proposed Lalan’s name, which was unanimously approved by all senior party leaders in the presence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, a senior party leader told TOI over phone from Delhi.
“Lalan Singh’s five-year tenure as state JD(U) president was very spectacular. Now, he will strengthen the party across the country on the basis of his long organizational experience,” JD(U) spokesperson Ranbir Nandan said.
Lalan, who is also the JD(U) leader in Lok Sabha, has become the fourth national party president after Sharad Yadav, Nitish and RCP, who is now a Union cabinet minister. RCP remained party chief for the shortest period of only seven months. Lalan and RCP first called on Nitish at his Delhi bungalow and then reached the meeting venue.
Voices were being raised within JD(U) to nominate a new party president after RCP’s induction into the Union cabinet on July 7 this year. RCP was also under pressure to sacrifice one of the two posts on the principle of ‘one man-one post’ adhered to by the party.
A well-known face in JD(U), Lalan had also served as the party’s Bihar president for nearly five years — from 2005 to 2010. A three-time Lok Sabha member, he first won the parliamentary polls in 2004 from Begusarai on JD(U) ticket. In the 2009 general elections, he switched to the neighbouring Munger seat and won for the second consecutive term. He, however, lost Munger seat to the Lok Janshakti Party’s Veena Devi in the 2014 polls, but regained it in 2019.
While being JD(U) state president, Lalan rebelled against Nitish over certain issues in 2010. But by 2013, he once again improved his relations with Nitish, who fielded him from Munger in 2014.
JD(U) national secretary general K C Tyagi, the party’s parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha, and Rajya Sabha member and former Bihar unit chief Bashishtha Narain Singh were also present at the party’s national executive committee meeting.
Apart from nominating Lalan, JD(U) also passed a number of resolutions, including reiterating its position that the central government should come out with caste census, an issue with potentially wide political ramifications, and also spoke against any coercive measures like the enactment of laws to control population growth. Some BJP-ruled states, including Uttar Pradesh, have batted for a law to curb the population growth.
Tyagi told reporters that coercive policies had failed during the Emergency, even as he added his party was in support of steps to control the growth of population.