RCP Singh (right) at the flag-off ceremony of the special status category campaign in Patna. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, July 11: Movement for a cause can often give birth to a leader-in-the-making. Bihar’s political history is stuffed with facts where a campaign for a reason has altered the career of the flag-bearer of change.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had made his “trusted” principal secretary RCP Singh a Rajya Sabha member last year. Now, the Uttar Pradesh cadre former IAS officer is using the chief minister-sponsored special category status rath (chariot) — in UP today on way to New Delhi — as an effective vehicle to transform himself from a reticent babu into a hard-boiled leader of the people with panache.

In fact, as the convener of the special status campaign, RCP, as he is popularly known, has got the first major political assignment to prove his worth as a potential politico. Insiders believe that, Nitish, despite his “affectionate” demeanour towards his protégée that RCP is, will keep close tabs on the latter’s performance since the chief minister is hardly known for promoting the laggards and non-performers.

For now, RCP is trying to give his best. It was not an easy task for a bureaucrat, used to the air-conditioned comfort, to brave the scorching sun blaze and dust in Bihar hinterlands. But after Nitish set in motion the drive to procure one-crore signatures from across the state in April, RCP fanned out to the remote villages and districts co-ordinating with the party cadres to meet the target.

JD(U) veteran Shivanand Tiwary had launched the campaign in Patna. But it was RCP who took the rigours of roping in workers to procure the signatures and organise bus operators, hoteliers, restaurants, guest houses, financers and other sundry logistics required to take 125 party leaders in a 27-vehicle convoy on a four-day journey to New Delhi. Of course, RCP’s contacts in UP while serving as an IAS officer might have come in handy.

“I am doing the work assigned to me to the best of my capacity. We have procured the signature of 1.25 crore people against the target of one crore. By all accounts now, it is a people’s movement for special category status to Bihar, which we are just facilitating,” RCP told The Telegraph from UP. The special status convoy was scheduled to have a night halt at Allahabad today.

Is RCP on way to become a Bihar cadre babu-turned-tall-political-figure like former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha or end up as several others of his ilk like Madhav Sinha, R. Lal and Lalitvijay Singh, who had dalliance with politics but failed to cope with rigours of political affairs?

However, RCP has a similarity with Yashwant. RCP to Nitish is what Yashwant was to Nitish’s mentor Karpoori Thakur. After quitting as principal secretary to then chief minister (Karpoori), Yashwant had joined the Karpoori-led socialist stream and went on to work closely with another socialist stalwart, Chandrashekhar. In course of time, he moved to the BJP and was finance minister and external affairs minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

Rather, RCP is relatively closer to Nitish. Belonging to the same Kurmi caste, RCP hails from a village in Nalanda — home district of Nitish. Son of a modest schoolteacher, the former Jawaharlal Nehru University student has worked with Nitish for quite a long time — he served as secretary to Nitish when the latter was the railway minister.

However, barring Yashwant, few Bihar’s IAS and IPS officers have so far succeeded as politicians. An articulate IAS officer of his time and principal secretary to then CM, Chandrashekhar Singh, Madhav Sinha ended up as an MLC with no political contributions worth remembering. Similarly, the former IPS officer, Lalitvijay Singh won Begusarai Lok Sabha seat as a Janata Dal nominee in 1989 and then slipped into oblivion. Former IPS officer, R. Lal, turned MLC but met a similar fate.

Whatever the future of the campaign is, the movement will help RCP become a political personality. “After all, leaders are born from the womb of a movement. The special status drive might give birth to a leader in RCP, the way the JP Movement produced the likes of Lalu Prasad and Nitish,” said a political observer.