PATNA: Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) president Santosh Kumar Suman, who resigned from the Nitish Kumar cabinet earlier this month, on Monday said Bihar’s Janata Dal (United) was jittery after his party’s exit from the Grand Alliance (GA) and claimed that this was reflected in the speed at which mountain man Dashrath Manjhi’s son and son-in-law were inducted.
“The fact is that after a Dalit minister quit, Nitish Kumar got unnerved and immediately started damage control. The swearing-in got delayed by a couple of days just because the governor was out of the station,” Suman said at a party meeting on Monday, the first after it announced its “in-principle” decision to support the coalition led by Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday last .
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“Nitish Kumar did not show the same speed for replacement when two RJD ministers, Sudhakar Singh and Kartikey Kumar, resigned last year. The Congress has been demanding two more berths and even Rahul Gandhi is said to have asked for filling up the berths, but they have remained vacant,” said Suman, the president of HAM (S) founded by his father Jitan Ram Manjhi.
Suman said the party will soon launch a mass contact programme across the 40 Lok Sabha seats from July 15 so that the party can strengthen the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) irrespective of which alliance partner gets the ticket.
Suman said that inducting Dashrath Manjhi’s son Bhagirath Manjhi and son-in-law Mithun Manjhi underlined how desperate JD-U had become. “Dashrath Manjhi is our icon, but his family members are not political. It is another attempt to use our icons for political gains,” he added.
The HAM-S chief said that he had nothing against Nitish Kumar, but Kumar was not allowed to do things the way he wanted by a caucus that was controlling the party.
Suman said that they tried to convince Nitish Kumar that the GA wasn’t the right coalition for him. “But he said he would not allow anybody to dictate terms and that is how we got together. However, when he lost complete control and started talking illogically about the merger between JD-U and HAM-S, we had no other option but to leave,” he added.
Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal (RJD) president Upendra Kishwaha, who walked out of the JD-U earlier, also took a swipe at the chief minister.
“Nitish Kumar is losing ground and has weakened. It started the day he picked up the lantern (RJD’s election symbol). Nitish Kumar also knows the meeting of non-BJP parties has no future and that he will suffer the most. The meeting could not come up with any concrete alternative to the NDA government at the Centre,” he said.
