New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is in the national capital to meet leaders of like-minded parties to bring the opposition under one roof to take on the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It was in this backdrop that Nitish’s aide and former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi also reached Delhi where he led a delegation to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Manjhi – who, like the late Ram Vilas Paswan, is a seasoned veteran of Bihar politics – quickly denied rumors that his meeting with Shah had anything to do with the possibility of switching loyalties before 2024.
After meeting Shah, Manjhi also met Nitish in Delhi. He then told reporters, “I will be with Nitish Kumar. He has all the qualities that are necessary to become the Prime Minister. He is making a sincere effort to unite the opposition to ensure some change in 2024 and has said that it is unimportant whether he is the PM candidate or someone else.
Asked about his father’s meeting with Shah, Hindustan Awam Morcha (Secular) president Santosh Kumar Suman told ThePrint, “He had sought an appointment with the PM on our long-pending demand, but the PMO Asked him to meet Amit Shah. We have been demanding for a long time to give Bharat Ratna to Dashrath Manjhi, there is no politics in this.
Suman insisted that the purpose of her father’s meeting with Shah was to urge the central government to consider the names of late Dashrath Manjhi, Bihar’s first chief minister Shri Krishan Singh and his successor Karpoori Thakur for the Bharat Ratna.
The BJP, on the other hand, sees Manjhi’s meeting with Shah as the first step towards political realignment in Bihar politics before 2024.
BJP MLA from Lakhisarai and Leader of the Opposition Vijay Kumar Sinha told ThePrint, “Manjhi Yes Bihar has a senior leader and our doors are always open for those who want to strengthen the hand of PM Modi to provide good governance in Bihar. Nitish Kumar is a sinking ship anyway; He cannot handle Bihar, but is busy uniting opposition leaders.”
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‘Bihar BJP has more space’
Nitish, while addressing a rally of the ruling Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) in Purnia on 25 February, had indicated that the BJP was “working” on Manjhi. The chief of the Janata Dal (United) also assured Manjhi that he would be “looked after” by announcing from the dais.
Asked what can be said about Manjhi that he owes it to Nitish for making him chief minister in 2014, a Bihar BJP leader who spoke to ThePrint on condition of anonymity said that even That Upendra Kushwaha also once said that he would “die rather than join hands” with the BJP.
Kushwaha parted ways with the JD(U) and floated his own party, the Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal (RLJP), in February this year.
On the other hand, sensing the ground reality, Manjhi has changed his loyalties several times in the past. For example, he contested the 2015 Bihar assembly elections in alliance with the BJP.
In February this year, Manjhi took a jibe at Deputy CM and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav for allegedly saying that his son Santosh Kumar Suman was “more qualified to be the next CM of Bihar” because he was ” more educated”. ,
A Bihar BJP leader told ThePrint, “Manjhi has criticized Nitish Kumar many times in the past. He was the first to raise the issue of Dalits being targeted under the state’s prohibition law; They demanded formation of a coordination committee to discuss the issue but no action was taken.”
“He (Manjhi) had asked some other leader of his party to be made a minister of state or MLC, but it did not happen. He went to the Grand Alliance in 2017, broke away from it in 2017 and rejoined it in 2022. This (meeting with Shah) is the first step towards sending a message before they change,” the leader said.
Meanwhile, a Bihar BJP functionary argued that the grand alliance has seven constituents, while the BJP has only one ally in Bihar.
“He (Manjhi) knows that he will not get as many seats to fight as part of the grand alliance. Paras (RLJP leader and Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras) is our only ally in Bihar. With us, he (Manjhi) can get a respectable number of seats, as Ram Vilas Paswan did in the past. The BJP fought only on 17 seats (in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections). We have more room to accommodate smaller parties.”
The BJP, if it wants to counter its demand for a grand alliance and a caste census, will need the support of smaller parties like Mukesh Sahni-led Vikas Insaan Party (VIP), Kushwaha’s RLJP, Manjhi’s HAM(S) and Chirag Will happen. Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) led by Paswan. Sahni, who became a vocal critic of the BJP after all three VIP MLAs in Bihar defected to the BJP after the 2022 Bihar elections, was granted Y+ security cover by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in February this year. ,
(Editing by Amritansh Arora)