KC Tyagi resigns as JD(U) spokesperson: What likely led veteran leader to step down

This is the second time in two years he resigned or was dropped as national spokesperson of the party. He was previously dropped from the position in March 2023, although this decision was reversed within two months following Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s intervention.

“I won my first Lok Sabha election in 1984 and had the honour of working as unofficial press advisor of former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh,” Tyagi told The Indian Express after the announcement was made. “I have worked with people like former Bihar CM and socialist icon Karpoori Thakur.”

Asked about the immediate trigger for his resignation, Tyagi said: “I was very much in a new team in which Nitish Kumar is party’s national president with Sanjay Kumar Jha as its national working president… I just felt I’d done my job enough. There is little to defend the party from”.

Tyagi also said he’s currently working on a book titled ‘My Presidents’ on the leaders that he has worked with. The book features an array of socialist leaders from Chaudhary Charan Singh and George Fernandes to Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, he said.

Asked if JD (U) ex-presidents Lalan Singh and RCP Singh would be also part of it, Tyagi said: “No. The book ends with Nitish Kumar, my leader in the party”.

Meanwhile, JD(U) sources in Patna indicated that Tyagi had been finding it uncomfortable to defend the party on some controversial subjects, especially in light of its return to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance earlier this year.

“At times, his statements on recent contentious issues on Waqf, caste census and SC/ST sub-categorisation did not go down well with the party,” a JD (U) source said, adding that a “coterie of leaders around the CM” could be also responsible for Tyagi leaving the important post.

Tyagi had served as national general secretary of the party since the merger of the JD(U) and the Samata Party in 2003.

Counted among the party’s most prominent voices in Delhi and the national media, Tyagi became Rajya Sabha MP in February 2013 after Upendra Kushwaha — then in the JD(U) — resigned from the Upper House and the party. He then served as MP from February 2013 to July 2016.