"Not Fond Of Chess, So Was Cheated": Lalu Yadav Party Veteran Quits

Four years after switching over to the Rashtriya Janata Dal, former Bihar minister Shyam Rajak claimed he felt "cheated" and decided to quit the party. The ex-minister switched over from Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) to Lalu Yadav's party in 2020. Shyam Rajak, a prominent Dalit leader, wrote a letter to the party President Lalu Yadav, announcing that he has given up on his primary membership.

"I was not fond of a game of chess, hence got cheated. You kept planning your moves, I kept caring about our relationship," he said in a cryptic post on X in Hindi, where he shared the letter he wrote Mr Yadav. 

"I was in the RJD and the people at the party were playing games. That is why I wrote (in my resignation) in the letter that they were playing games while I was carrying on the relations. I don't know anything else except self-respect, honour, and vision to work. You are all journalists, you can assess if I was kept on the sidelines or in the mainstream...," he told ANI. He added that he has not made any decision about joining any other party.

"We have nothing to say on this. Elections are coming, everyone will see whether to go somewhere or not... We have worked for the people," Tejashwi Yadav said.

RJD spokesperson, Shakti Yadav, lashed out at Mr Rajak and said, "It is Shyam Rajak who likes to play a game of chess, while our leaders Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav speak and act from the heart. He came back to RJD when he was in the political wilderness. But, then, he has been known to be a party hopper."

Mr Rajak was also a minister in the government headed by the RJD supremo's wife Rabri Devi, but he quit the party in 2009, to join the JD(U), which had by then risen to power.

In August 2020, then Industries Minister and JD(U) national General Secretary Rajak was sacked from the state Cabinet and expelled from the party for six years over 'anti-party' activities.

When approached with queries, he claimed that he had decided on the "advice of supporters" in the Phulwari Sharif assembly constituency. 

Though the ex-minister said he has not decided whether he will join any other party, he praised his ex-boss, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and said, "I still believe he is a man with vision, who works and allows his peers to work freely. If Bihar is now treated with respect and no more seen as an object of ridicule, the credit must go to him."

The former minister, who is said to have been upset over the RJD's failure to consider him for a berth in the legislative council, also said he would reveal his cards "in a week".

-- With Inputs from PTI