Patna: Two key allies of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi may ditch the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) very soon as they are said to be in touch with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad.
As per the story doing the rounds in the state political circles, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) headed by federal minister of state for Human Resources Development Upendra Kushwaha and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) led by former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi are weighing their future in the company of the RJD. Both of them are said to be unhappy with the kind of treatment being metered out to them by the BJP which has asked its party leaders to prepare for all 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.
The local media has reported that Kushwaha recently met Prasad and discussed the prevailing political scene in the state, fuelling speculation that he may dump the NDA very soon. “They held a one-on-one meeting and discussed current political scenario in Bihar and likely political moves ahead of the 2019 general elections,” according to insiders.
The reported meeting took place on Monday shortly after Kushwaha was projected as the chief ministerial candidate of Bihar at a recent rally by the RLSP at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on Sunday over improving the academic situation in the state.
Sources say Kushwaha is not at all happy with the way Nitish Kumar returned to the NDA camp and then he was told to resign from the Union cabinet by the BJP although he refused to do that. Reports added the RJD chief too has no problem in projecting Kushwaha as the CM candidate as his son Tejashwi is still in the process of learning the tricks of the trade.
Kushwaha also is well aware of the fact that the BJP was not going to spare too many seats in the next Lok Sabha polls for his party with a number of parties now joining the NDA. In the last Lok Sabha polls, Kushawaha and Ram Vilas Paswan were the only two allies of the BJP in Bihar, but now Jitan Ram Manjhi and Nitish Kumar too have joined them which is set to bring trouble in the NDA camp during the seat-sharing.
Like Kushwaha, Manjhi too is angry at the way the BJP has ignored him till date. As per reports, Manjhi had joined the NDA with the promise that he would be made the Governor and his son too would be suitably “accommodated”.
More than two years after joining the NDA, Manjhi still awaits the “happy’ moment to come.
Last month, the BJP appointed many of leaders as Governors, but Manjhi again was left out, bringing gloom in his camp. One of the leaders getting the gubernatorial job was his own BJP colleague from Bihar Ganga Prasad Chaurasia who was made the Governor of Meghalaya, causing further heartburn.
Amid reports of Manjhi drifting towards the Grand Alliance, his arch-rival and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar visited his native village in Gaya district on Wednesday and announced many projects for Manjhi’s village. The move is said to be part of the NDA’s strategy to keep Manjhi in good humour till the next 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Curiously, it was Kumar who had deprived him of the throne in February 2015 with help from the RJD.
