Rajya Sabha member Ramchandra Prasad Singh has been appointed as the new chief for Janata Dal (United) (JDU) by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The move comes immediately Kumar suffered a setback with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) its ally in Bihar poaching six of its MLAs in Arunachal Pradesh.

According to sources, despite the party appointing Singh as its chief, it was Kumar who had expressed his desire to senior party leaders about having the former IAS officer appointed as the new JDU chief.

The move many believe is a way of making himself unavailable for BJP, as Kumar, holds the saffron party responsible the poor performance of his party in the recently concluded Bihal assembly polls. In doing so, Kumar is pushing his confidante to both looking after JDU and also dealing with BJP.

With change of fold of JDU leaders in Arunachal Pradesh and change of order in JDU it seems like all is not well between the two NDA allies, with BJP projecting itself as the dominant partner since the Bihar polls concluded.

According to an NDTV report, Singh, a former IAS officer of UP cadre, is not just close to the Bihar CM but also belongs to the same caste. He has also served Kumar as his personal secretary during the former’s tenure as railway minister. When Kumar became the CM in 2005, Singh moved on to become the principal secretary.

Half a decade later, Singh was nominated as the Rajya Sabha member, following which he has been Kumar’s representative in Delhi, especially after JDU returning to NDA in 2017.

According to sources Singh had played a key role in forming the JDU-BJP alliance for both the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 2020 Bihar assembly polls.