Patna: After Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) agreed to accept Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate of the "secular" alliance in Bihar, there wasn't much choice left for former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. Either his newly-formed HAM (Hindustan Awam Morcha) contests alone on all the 243 seats, or form an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been wooing the Mahadalit leader for a while.
The former chief minister chose the latter, stitching up an alliance with the BJP, with a hope that it would revive his political fortunes like that of his fellow Dalit leader Ramvilas Paswan.
Manjhi, who was an unknown entity before being made the Chief Minister of Bihar by Nitish Kumar, has suddenly emerged as a force to reckon with in Bihar politics. So, what makes this 70-year-old veteran the most sought after politician in Bihar today? That is a short story which stretched over five years.
Manjhi was always a low-profile leader who always struggled to raise enough funds to fight his own election. According to one of his close associates, he wasn't keen on contesting the 2010 Assembly elections, instead wanted a JDU ticket for his son. He was persuaded to contest by none other than Nitish kumar, and Manjhi would never regret that decision.
When I was in Bihar in 2014 to cover the Parliamentary elections for a national channel, I had never heard of Manjhi. He was just one of the many ministers in the Nitish government who contested the Lok Sabha polls on a JDU ticket from Gaya, and lost. The day Nitish picked him as the chief minister in his place, I was the one to break the story, but struggled very hard on live chats because I knew little about him. I interviewed him that night itself and got the impression, like many others, that he was going to be a puppet chief minister. And within weeks, he proved us all wrong.
Manjhi's populist decisions won him support from his own community. His decision to provide reservation to upper caste Rajputs and Bhumihars added more vote base to his leadership. The decision to give up to 35 per cent reservation to women in government jobs and recommendation to regularise all contract teachers won him support across all castes.
Despite making many controversial statements during his tenure as CM, Manjhi's vote bank only grew over the months. He also tried to make a base among the Adivasi community, calling them an extended family of Dalits. Mahadalits constitute about 24 per cent of the vote bank, and the Adivasis added another three or four per cent to the tally.
The Mahadalit vote bank, which was once carved out carefully by the 'Chanakya' of Bihar politics, Nitish Kumar, thus came under threat from his own loyalist. It was this community which helped Nitish kumar's JDU cross 115 seats and made him the undisputed leader of Mahadalits. The reason to anoint Manjhi as chief minister was to strengthen this vote bank. But when Nitish ceremoniously removed him, Manjhi became a martyr in the eyes of Dalits.
The BJP, which had realised the potential of Manjhi, was wooing him even when he was the chief minister, this, despite the fact that it had a prominent Dalit face like Ramvilas Paswan as an ally, and Upendra Kushwaha as the party's OBC leader. The party calculated that the emergence of Manjhi would dent the vote bank of RJD-JDU-Congress combine.
Many upper caste leaders like Mahachandra Prasad, who represents a sizeable chunk of Bhumihar votes, and well-known Rajput leader Narendra Singh, who has his influential pockets in Munger and Bhagalpur, have already thrown their weight behind Manjhi. The BJP can also take relief that many in the Yadav community are disgruntled with Lalu Yadav for accepting Nitish as his leader. They are likely to switch loyalty to the saffron camp.
Besides, Pappu Yadav, who was thrown out of the RJD recently, holds huge clout among Yadavs of Purnia, Bhagalpur, Munger and Saharsa. He is also likely to support Manjhi. Now it remains to be seen how many seats Manjhi can bargain from NDA. Even if he manages to win around 15-20 seats this time, Manjhi can play a kingmaker, but, he remains an untested player so far.
As one local journalist pointed out, there is nothing in his name (Jitan Ram), it's all in his surname (Manjhi). Will that surname win him enough votes to remain a force in Bihar politics is what his friends and rivals alike would be anxiously waiting to see.
(Amit Raj Singh is a Patna based journalist)
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