A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

With election just a month away, Nitish Kumar and JD(U)-BJP look the better side. Will he be chief minister fourth time in a row, or will RJD play spoiler?

- AMITABH SRIVASTAVA

On August 28, Jitan Ram Manjhi, chief of the Hindustani Awam Morcha or HAM (Secular), visited Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at his residence. It was a signal that the self-appointed champion of the Maha dalits (the most marginalized among the Scheduled Castes) had returned to his erstwhile mentor’s camp in the run-up to the Bihar assembly election.

The move was only to be expected after Manjhi formally quit the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led Grand Alliance on August 20. The former chief minister (May 2014-February 2015) has had stints in both the NDA and Grand Alliance camps, with his party polling around 2.3 per cent of the vote in the 2015 assembly election and the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Bihar is set for a high-stakes election next month. In 2015, Nitish was in alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD and the Congress when they put a stop to the runaway winning streak of the Modi-Shah-led BJP here. Nitish broke away in July 2017 with his Janata Dal (United) or JD(U)—purportedly because fresh corruption cases were filed against Lalu and his son Tejashwi Yadav—and joined the NDA. In 2019, the BJP-JD(U), along with ally Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), won 39 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. Nitish is now eyeing a fourth term as chief minister.

AAYA RAM GAYA RAM?