PATNA: Former Bihar CM and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi dropped a bombshell on Friday by demanding that his son, Santosh Suman, a minister, should be elevated to the post of CM and even indirectly called his son more qualified than Bihar deputy chief minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav to hold the top post.
Manjhi contended that his son is young and also more educated than those whose name was doing rounds for the CM post.
“Santosh is NET qualified and also a professor who can teach these CM candidates,” Manjhi remarked. The former CM said his son had more qualifications to become CM except the fact that he belongs to the ‘Bhuiyan’ community and is a Dalit. On the other hand, BJP OBC Morcha’s national general secretary and state party spokesperson Dr Nikhil Anand said, “RJD and JDU are facing major contradictions as Tejashwi is overshadowing Nitish. The leaders of JDU and RJD were indirectly and at times directly taking on each other, even making public statements. This contradiction is visible to anyone who observes the language as well as the body language of Nitish and Tejashwi even when they are together.”
Meanwhile on the cabinet expansion and Congress’ share, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav asserted that Congress would be given only one ministerial berth in the cabinet expansion, rejecting the latter’s demand of two berths. Tejashwi told the media persons, “It was decided in advance that there will be one minister from Congress quota in future cabinet expansion.” Tejashwi made the statement about inducting a single minister from the Congress cabinet in the presence of CM.
His remark has left Congress crestfallen as the state party president Akhilesh Prasasd Singh had claimed that CM Nitish Kumar had assured him of inducting two ministers into the cabinet from the Congress quota. Some senior Congress leaders, including the party legislative party leader Ajit Sharma, had not found a place in the state cabinet before.
Nitish also hinted at an early cabinet expansion by saying everything would be sorted out as it was not a major issue. “There are not many vacant posts of ministers in his cabinet,” he added. He said that it was perhaps for the first time that there were so many ministers in the state cabinet.
In the Bihar cabinet, there can be a maximum 36 ministers and presently there are 33 ministers. Earlier, Tejashwi had claimed that there would not be any cabinet expansion creating a flutter in the political circle.