Accused in 2014 kidnapping case, Bihar minister resigns amid protests

Patna, September 1

Bihar minister Kartik Kumar, an accused in a 2014 kidnapping case, has resigned amid protests by the opposition, officials said.

Kartik Kumar, an RJD MLC, who became the state’s law minister in the new Nitish Kumar government, resigned hours after being moved to a lesser significant sugarcane department on Wednesday night.

The resignation has been accepted and forwarded to the governor, a statement from the Chief Minister’s Office said.

Revenue and Land Reforms Minister Alok Kumar Mehta has been given the additional charge of the sugarcane department, the officials said.

Kartik Kumar was believed to have been chosen by the RJD as part of Tejashwi Yadav’s outreach towards the Bhumihars, a politically powerful upper caste largely sympathetic to the BJP.

The saffron party, which lost power following a political upheaval in Bihar earlier this month, raised hell over Kartik Kumar’s induction despite his name figuring in the kidnapping case.