57 Facts About Upendra Kushwaha

Upendra Kushwaha has served as Minister of State for Human Resources and Development in the Government of India.

Upendra Kushwaha was the leader of Rashtriya Samata Party, his own party, which merged into Janata Dal in 2009.

On 20 February 2023, Upendra Kushwaha resigned from all positions in Janata Dal and formed his own party called Rashtriya Lok Morcha due to his political problems with JD and Nitish Kumar.

Upendra Kushwaha contested the Lok Sabha election of 2024 from Karakat constituency and finished at a distant third position.

Upendra Kushwaha Kumar Singh was born to Muneshwar Singh and Muneshwari Devi on 6 February 1960 in Vaishali, Bihar, into a middle-class family.

Upendra Kushwaha graduated from Patna Science College and then gained a Master of Arts in Political Science from BR Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzaffarpur.

Upendra Kushwaha added 'Kushwaha' to his name at the suggestion of Nitish Kumar: the surname is associated with caste identity and was supposed to improve his political standing.

Upendra Kushwaha had worked with Karpoori Thakur and Jay Prakash Narayan and, like the other significant leaders of the 1990s such as Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, Upendra Kushwaha had socialist leanings.

Upendra Kushwaha has spoken of his cordial relations with Bhujbal and Sharad Pawar; he credits Pawar for helping him during a difficult period in his political life.

Upendra Kushwaha entered politics in 1985; from then until 1988, he was State General Secretary of Yuva Lok Dal.

Upendra Kushwaha became National General-Secretary of Yuva Janata Dal from 1988 to 1993.

Upendra Kushwaha worked as General-Secretary for Samata Party from 1994 to 2002.

Upendra Kushwaha, who was a one time MLA then, was made leader of the opposition in Bihar Legislative Assembly.

Upendra Kushwaha was dismissed from Janata Dal in 2007.

Upendra Kushwaha founded the Rashtriya Samata Party in February 2009 against the backdrop of alleged marginalisation of the Koeri caste and autocratic rule by the Bihar state government of Nitish Kumar.

On 4 January 2013, Upendra Kushwaha, who at the time was a Rajya Sabha member, resigned from Janata Dal, saying the Nitish model had failed and that the law-and-order situation was becoming as bad as it had been seven years before.

Upendra Kushwaha founded Rashtriya Lok Samata Party on 3 March 2013, and unveiled the party's name and flag at a rally at Gandhi Maidan.

Upendra Kushwaha contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as part of the National Democratic Alliance, which Narendra Modi led.

Upendra Kushwaha was elected to Karakat constituency and was appointed Minister of State in Human Resource Development.

In December 2018, Upendra Kushwaha resigned from the ministry and left the NDA, accusing Modi of not fulfilling his election promises regarding Bihar.

Upendra Kushwaha indicated his discontent with the NDA leadership due to diminishing importance as an ally.

Upendra Kushwaha's RLSP left the NDA alliance because it was not given appropriate seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Upendra Kushwaha then joined United Progressive Alliance, which included Rashtriya Janata Dal, Hindustani Awam Morcha, and Vikassheel Insaan Party.

Upendra Kushwaha contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election in the Karakat and Ujiyarpur constituencies.

Upendra Kushwaha cited the unacceptability of the leadership of Tejashwi Yadav as the reason for his separation from the "Grand Alliance".

Upendra Kushwaha left Janata Dal on two occasions but after the split of 2013, he lost much support and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party suffered massive election defeats, most notably in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the 2020 assembly election.

The decline of support of the Upendra Kushwaha caste resulted in setbacks for JD, which was reduced to 43 seats in the 2020 election to the Bihar Legislative Assembly.

Upendra Kushwaha engaged in anti-coalition politics against the Mahagathbandhan in 2023, when he challenged the leadership of Tejashwi Yadav as the successor to Nitish Kumar.

Upendra Kushwaha demanded a greater role for the Koeri caste in the electoral politics of Bihar.

Upendra Kushwaha said the incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy CM Tejaswi Yadav had grabbing the political rights of other Other Backward Castes and that after the Yadavs and Kurmis, the premiership of Bihar should pass into the hands of a Kushwaha leader, considering the leader of these three castes together launched the political party Triveni Sangh in the 1930s.

Amidst speculation he would join the Bhartiya Janata Party, Upendra Kushwaha said he would remain in JDU, working towards strengthening it.

Kumar, in a statement to media, asked Upendra Kushwaha to settle the dispute, if any, through conciliation within the party.

Amidst a political crisis in the state, in which Upendra Kushwaha was important factor, Kushawa's convoy of vehicles was attacked during a visit to Bhojpur.

Upendra Kushwaha resigned from JDU and announced the formation of a new party called Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal on 20 February 2023.

Upendra Kushwaha faced a tough electoral contest as Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh, who was earlier given the symbol of Bharatiya Janata Party and made a candidate from Asansol Lok Sabha constituency decided to contest the election from Karakat Lok Sabha constituency.

The loss of Upendra Kushwaha affected caste equation in the whole Shahabad region as the Koeri people voted against BJP and Rajput candidates in the constituencies in the vicinity of Karakat.

Upendra Kushwaha lost his assembly election in 2005 despite support from Kumar.

Upendra Kushwaha's RLSP fought the 2014 Lok Sabha election in alliance with the BJP and won the three seats it was allotted.

When Nitish Kumar, who contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election alone without being part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, returned to the NDA, Upendra Kushwaha was overlooked by NDA leadership as they focused more on Nitish.

In 2021, Upendra Kushwaha merged his RLSP into JDU and Kumar appointed him Parliamentary Board chairman.

Upendra Kushwaha said the party was weakening from the inside.

In 2016, while he was serving as Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Upendra Kushwaha expressed his views on reservation in the private sector for Other Backward Classes.

Saini supported Upendra Kushwaha and demanded organisations working for the welfare of OBCs should speak against the under-representation of OBCs in some of the key institutions.

In 2022, when he was serving as the Parliamentary Board president of Janata Dal, Upendra Kushwaha accused the Bhartiya Janata Party of plotting to destroy the caste-based reservation for Other Backward Castes.

Upendra Kushwaha criticised the BJP's key leadership for remaining silent on the issue of conducting a nationwide "caste-based census", which according to Kushwaha, while he was serving as Union Minister as a BJP ally, the BJP's senior leaders promised to conduct.

Upendra Kushwaha announced the participation of his political workers in the all-India protest organised by farmers in Delhi if the bills were not taken back.

Upendra Kushwaha asked the Narendra Modi government to take the bills back because they were supposed to serve the interest of big farmers and the corporations, and were detrimental to small and marginal farmers.

Upendra Kushwaha was opposed to the way the ban was being implemented.

Upendra Kushwaha accused government officials of colluding with alcohol suppliers and asked the people to volunteer to make the prohibition successful.

Upendra Kushwaha was an ardent supporter of the project of Bihar government for enumeration of population of various caste groups residing within the state.

Upendra Kushwaha demanded that the socio-economic profile of various castes should be kept in public domain as it will help government to formulate policies to uplift them.

Upendra Kushwaha sanctioned the funds required for setting up of KVs for ensuring quality education and even announced that his party will put pressure on the Government of Bihar through protests, to expedite the process of establishment of KVs, if the land for it was not allocated by the state government in time.

Upendra Kushwaha said the Supreme Court of India judges worry about their successors and practising nepotism.

Upendra Kushwaha lauded the Central Board of Secondary Education for maintaining a decent quality of education across the country.

In 2016, Upendra Kushwaha inaugurated the new infrastructure and building for the All India Council for Technical Education.

Upendra Kushwaha urged the creation of a system in which the companies would visit campuses to select meritorious engineers.

Upendra Kushwaha said the government had plotted to kill Kushwaha.