Saran MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy, a senior BJP leader, said on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, in Chapra that his party is not giving much importance to Rajput leaders in Bihar. He also said that no people from the Rajput caste trust any Rajput leader in the state.

He made the remarks while speaking to reporters in Chapra, Saran. He was answering a question about the recently concluded Bihar Legislative Council polls. In those polls, Janata Dal (United) candidate Anand Pushkar lost the Saran Teachers Constituency seat to independent candidate Rahul Raj, who belongs to the Rajput community.

Rudy did not hold back on the party. He questioned whether the BJP would ever listen to a Rajput leader in Bihar in any meaningful way.

“Some people are saying that if Rudy ji wanted, he (Rahul Raj) would have stepped aside. Today, no Rajput in Bihar has any faith in any politician. And do you really think the BJP gives enough importance to any Rajput that they would actually heed what that person says? That is something the party needs to understand.”

The Saran MP then addressed the idea that Rahul Raj should have withdrawn in his favour or in favour of Janardan Singh Sigriwal. Sigriwal is a BJP MP from Maharajganj. Rudy said it was up to the BJP to decide whether a candidate steps aside. He added that he did not believe one Rajput leader in Bihar would agree to step aside just because another Rajput leader asked him to. In his words, such a scenario did not appear likely at the moment.

That answer lands in the middle of a bitter fight. After his defeat, Pushkar, who belongs to the Brahmin community, made a sharp accusation. He said BJP had betrayed him and that all the Rajput MPs and MLAs of Saran, including Rajiv Pratap Rudy, had helped the independent candidate win.

A day after the results were declared, Pushkar went further. He said, in Hindi, that all the BJP MPs had committed betrayal. He named Rudy, Sigriwal and Radha Mohan Singh, and said they had openly betrayed him. The accusation came from a candidate who had been expected to carry the JD(U) banner into the council seat.

Pushkar’s family has its own history with this seat. His father, the late Kedar Nath Pandey, had represented the Saran Teachers Constituency four times on a Communist Party of India (CPI) ticket. That long political roots in the constituency make the loss sting more for his camp.

The MLC row goes beyond Saran. A controversy has already erupted over two independent Members of the Legislative Council, Bansidhar Brajwasi from Tirhut and Rahul Raj from Saran, who are now seen as having joined the BJP after being elected as independents. Brajwasi defeated JD(U)’s Abhishek Jha in the Tirhut Graduates’ seat.

The opposition has pushed back hard. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) demanded that both men be disqualified under the anti-defection law. On Wednesday, November 4, 2026, a delegation led by the party’s National General Secretary Abdul Bari Siddiqui submitted a memorandum to Ram Bachan Rai, the Acting Chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council. The memorandum sought the disqualification of both MLCs, who were elected as independents but later joined the BJP.

Rudy was asked about Rahul Raj joining the BJP. He refused to get drawn in. “I do not want to comment on this,” he said. He then turned to praise the state government, saying, “Under the leadership of Samrat Choudhary, good government is being run and we have blessing of Nitish Kumar ji.” The line was a careful one. It defended the state set-up while avoiding the question that mattered most to the RJD.

Rudy is no backbench voice. He is a four-time Lok Sabha member. After the BJP’s victory in the 2014 general election, he became part of the Narendra Modi cabinet. In September 2017, he resigned from the Skill Development Ministry. He has not been a minister at the Centre since then.

The rift with his own party has been visible for some time. In August 2025, Rudy defeated former Union Minister and BJP leader Sanjeev Balyan in the keenly contested Constitution Club poll in New Delhi. Many observers called it a BJP versus BJP battle. The result showed that the internal divisions were not limited to Bihar.

Local anger over representation is now being voiced openly. Social activist Thakur Bunty Singh, based in the Saran division, made a pointed argument about numbers. He said that in the Saran Teachers Constituency, Rajputs hold the largest number of elected seats, including nine MLAs, four MPs and two MLCs. Despite that, he said, the constituency has no representation in the Bihar or Central government.

That is the sharpest charge in the whole row. It is not just that a community feels ignored. It is that, on paper, the numbers are there, and the political returns have not followed. Rudy’s own words, that no Rajput trusts a Rajput politician in Bihar, suggest the frustration runs inside the party as well as outside it.

The source report does not include a response from the BJP leadership to Rudy’s remarks or to Pushkar’s accusations of betrayal. It also does not say whether the Acting Chairman has ruled on the RJD’s disqualification memorandum. Those are the answers voters in Saran and across Bihar will be looking for next.

For now, the picture is clear. A sitting BJP MP has publicly said his party does not give enough weight to Rajput leaders. A defeated JD(U) candidate has accused his former allies of betrayal. The opposition is pressing for two MLCs to be removed. Each of these threads adds to a fight that is about caste, power and who gets to speak for Saran.