By Md. Mudassir Alam for TwoCircles.net,
Bihar has witnessed a very chaotic crisis in the recent time, which in turn has directly or indirectly affected the common people of the state. With the resignation of Jitan Ram Manjhi, the self-proclaimed political superman of Bihar from the CM’s post all types of speculations came to an end.
However, such political mishap in Bihar created only due to internal reasons of ruling Janata Dal (United) party as many friends turned into foes. Thanks to two political stalwarts former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his close-aid (loyalist) gifted CM Jitan Ram Manjhi. From February 7, 2015, since the time top-brass of Janata Dal (United) announced for change of guard i.e. CM’s post from Manjhi to Nitish a totally unprecedented situation come into existence.
Jitan Ram Manjhi (Courtesy: IT)
While party president Sharad Yadav announced Nitish Kumar as CM of Bihar by replacing Manjhi, the latter totally took a U-turn and revolted against the party’s decision. In fact, once the loyalist of Nitish, Manjhi proved himself as worst enemy of his god-father, which resulted into all types of political drama. Be it the parade of 130 MLAs in leadership of Nitish Kumar before the President of India, stay at five star hotel at Greater Noida (UP) or series of lunch and dinner parties thrown away by many leaders of JD (U) and Manjhi camp, to be very frank the tax payers’ money has been mercilessly wasted by politicians and no-one is there to care.
And importantly, all these happened due to one-time friend turned enemies Nitish and Manjhi political ambition. While Nitish was confident of proving majority in Bihar assembly, Manjhi too left no stone unturned for saving the CM’s chair and knocked the door of main rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Manjhi met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, succeeded in convincing the governor Kehsri Nath Tripathi for providing him enough time to prove his majority and go through floor test on February 20, 2015. All eyes were fixed over the date and out-comings after the floor test.
Till the time Manjhi handed over the resignation in the morning of Friday, the politics of Bihar was a much-talked about topic in political corridors and people from various sections in the state and other parts of country. Even after handing over the resignation Manjhi tried to safeguard himself by blaming his own party for life-threat to him and his loyal MLAs. On the other hand, Nitish could breathe easily after about two weeks and blamed BJP for all the misdeeds of Manjhi and political unrest in the state. But, taking a cue from Arvind Kejriwal’s highly successful stand of apologising the people for leaving the government in Delhi, Nitish Kumar too apologised to people of Bihar and also thanked Shiv Sena, Trinamool Congress and BSP supremos for standing beside him.
As a keen observer of Bihar politics and a common citizen, like many I too was quite interested to witness the final outcome of Nitish-Manjhi spat and felt relaxed after the CM’s decision about his resign flashed into news channels. In truth, after Lok Sabha election debacle in May 2014, the decision of Sushasan babu Nitish to leave the CM’s post on emotional ground and leaving the fate of state in hand of man like Manjhi was criticised by many and I am one among them. The political career of Manjhi’s was full of controversies; neither was he an accomplished politician nor a true Dalit leader.
Mixed responses were given over Nitish’s decision and the series of controversies revolving around Manjhi begun after that. Be it the claim for becoming the country’s PM, the tag of puppet CM given by BJP, appointing his own son-in-law as personal assistant (PA) or the controversial statements about his own party or caste, Manjhi tried to remain in the news headlines. Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi in fact has sought the chief minister’s resignation and recovery of the salary his son-in-law received as his PA. Many times he tried to defy his mentor Nitish and Sharad Yadav as well, hence, committing hara-kiri was the only option left for Manjhi, who was more interested in promoting and securing his kith and kins’ lives, instead of people of Bihar.
Before becoming CM of Bihar, Manjhi a six-time MLA first became a deputy minister for welfare in the Chandrashekhar Singh-led Congress government in the early 1980s. In his second ministerial stint he was MoS for education in the Lalu Prasad Yadav RJD government in 1996. In 2005, Nitish made him public health and engineering minister in NDA government. If we look into the political career of Manjhi there are many black-spots like the charges framed against him in the BEd scam of the RJD government, when he had been deputy to then minister Jayprakash Narayan Yadav. After large criticism he had to resign as minister within 24 hours of his swearing in Nitish cabinet in 2005 at Gandhi Maidan. Thirty months later after the court cleared his name, Manjhi re-entered the Nitish cabinet with the creation of a new department — SC/ST welfare, which played a key role in social engineering of Nitish and implementing dozen of schemes.
The political career and controversies itself explain the character of Manjhi very well and his stature as a Messiah of dalits. Of course, the deprived class of the state and country need due attention and support for bringing them to main-stream, but the way Manjhi tried to take due advantage of his caste background it totally unacceptable and unjustified. With his political hara-kiri he has created an environment of unfaithfulness in the political corridor and tried his best to sink the boat of his own party as a Manjhi (captain).
Manjhi episode is a big lesson for political parties where profiles and positions are changed for gaining the support and vote of common people. Irony is that once a politician from any background becomes a Chief Minister or Prime Minister, he doesn’t represent a particular caste, religion or political party, the honorary stature makes him / her above all. Manjhi tried to take emotional support of the dalits and minorities in wrong ways for his self-interest, so the AAM Bihari needs to be very cautious and think many times before franchising their votes to any political leader and party.
(The writer is Public Relations Officer (PRO) in Central University of Bihar.)