PATNA: A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bihar, his cabinet colleague and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) patron Jitan Ram Manjhi on Sunday threatened that his party would contest 100 seats independently if it was not given 15 to 20 seats in the upcoming assembly elections scheduled to be held in October-November.
Asserting that his party’s main objective was to secure recognition from the Election Commission, Manjhi said, “If we want HAM to get recognition, we will definitely take a tough decision. To get recognition, we need to win eight assembly seats. Considering the vote share and total votes, we should get 20 seats, because not all seats will be won.”
He further said, “If we consider that we will win 60 percent of seats we contest, 15 seats will be enough, as in that case, we will win 8 seats. Otherwise, we will fight alone on 100 seats, and we have 10,000–15,000 voters everywhere. We will win and get six percent votes to obtain recognition.”
"After completing 10 years as a registered party, HAM feels sidelined, and this election is a “do-or-die issue” for us. Our workers’ commitment at the constituency level is very strong,” he added.
Incidentally, at the party’s national executive held in New Delhi recently, Manjhi had caused a flutter by stating that HAM could fight all 243 seats in the upcoming assembly elections in the state. He, however, backtracked when journalists approached him with queries back home and clarified that it was a rhetoric he had resorted to to enthuse his cadres. He claimed that his party was not spending a single penny on campaigns, as people were still turning up on their own wherever an event was organised.
“NDA members understand this, and they will calculate which party has the potential to win. We are hopeful that we will get a fair number of seats and achieve recognition in 2025. This is our target,” he said.
Manjhi had floated HAM (Secular) in 2015 after he split the JD(U) in protest against pressure from Nitish Kumar to step down as chief minister to facilitate the latter’s return to the post. At present Manjhi’s son Santosh Kumar Suman is the president of HAM. He is also a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet. While Suman is a member of the state legislative council, his wife Deepa and mother-in-law Jyoti Devi are members of the state legislative assembly.