Upendra Kushwaha elected national president of RLSP for third consecutive term

PATNA: Former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha was on Sunday elected as national president of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) for the third consecutive term.
“As Upendra was the only person who had filed nomination for the post, he was declared “elected unopposed” by the party’s electoral officer Pramod Kumar Suman at its national council meet, held at the Constitution Club in New Delhi,” party spokesperson Fazal Imam Mallick said.
Earlier, Kushwaha was elected national president in 2013 and 2016.
Newly elected members of the national council, district presidents and specially invited delegates from different states were present at the national council meet.
Senior party leaders Madhaw Anand and Rajesh Yadav were nominated as national secretary general and treasurer, respectively.
Earlier on May 26, Kushwaha-led RLSP received a major setback when all three of its legislators in Bihar (two MLAs Lalan Paswan and Sudhanshu Shekhar and one MLC Sanjiv Shyam Singh) joined the ruling JD(U).
The three legislators had earlier revolted against Kushwaha’s decision to snap ties with the NDA and join the Mahagathbandhan before the 2019 general election.
Earlier, a close associate of Bihar CM, Kushwaha was with the JD(U) till 2013, when he resigned from the party and his Rajya Sabha membership following differences with Nitish Kumar. He floated his own party - the RLSP which later aligned with the NDA and won all three Lok Sabha seats — Karakat, Jehanabad and Sitamarhi - it contested in the 2014 general election.
In 2019 general election, the RLSP contested five seats in alliance with the RJD-led Grand Alliance, but it lost all the five seats.