PATNA: After complaining for months about the frequent defects his old, official car had been showing, former Bihar chief minister and Dalit leader Jitan Ram Manjhi was in for a pleasant surprise. As he returned home after meeting Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, he found a brand-new, bullet-proof Toyota Fortuner SUV in his portico. It was an indication that the ruling NDA was keen on keeping him in good humour.
But Manjhi, 73, the only MLA and national president of his minuscule Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) party, left the ruling JD(U) and BJP shocked when he defected to the Opposition RJD-led Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) a few days ago. Frustration over NDA’s’ unwillingness to accommodate his many wishes had prompted him into the embrace of an eager RJD.
Despite HAM’s low profile—it got just 2.3 per cent votes in the 2015 Assembly polls and only one of its 19 candidates won—Manjhi’s company could make the embattled RJD stronger by giving it the crucial support of Dalit voters. Coming from the dirt-poor Musahar community, Manjhi is expected to make a dent in NDA’s electoral base in the Mahadalit communities that constitute 12 per cent of Bihar’s population.
RJD is once again banking strongly on ‘M-Y axis’ (Muslim- Yadav combine) to sail through the 2020 polls like in the mid-90s. Muslims constitute about 17 per cent of Bihar’s population, and Yadavs about 15 per cent. “That and the Mahadalit support together put us in a much higher plane,” said an RJD leader.
RJD is also eyeing the upper-caste Rajputs and the OBC community of Koeris. RJD national vice-president Shivanand Tiwary met don-turned-politician Anand Mohan in Saharsa jail on February 2. Mohan, a former MP serving life term for murder, still enjoys considerable popularity among Rajputs, who constitute 5.2 per cent of the population.
Koeri leader and Union minister Upendra Kushwaha, national president of Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, is also being wooed by RJD. Kushwaha has reportedly been unhappy since Nitish returned to the NDA fold in July 2017. While BJP and JD(U) leaders skipped a statewide human chain for education that Kushwaha organised recently, several senior RJD leaders attended it.
Next to the Yadavs, the Koeris are the largest OBC community—six per cent of the state’s population. The day Manjhi switched sides, Rabri Devi, wife of jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad, repeated what party leader Raghuvansh Singh had claimed earlier. “Kushwaha is also set to join us. It is a matter of time only,” she said. These are certainly busy times for RJD.