Patna: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s body language changes with the change of alliance partners — he’s “cool and relaxed” when he’s part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and “tense” in the mahagathbandhan, newly inducted Bihar minister Santosh Kumar Suman has told ThePrint.
“Since 2020, I have worked with Nitishji as a minister in both the NDA government and mahagathbandhan government,” Suman, a Dalit leader who resigned from Nitish’s former government in June last year, said in an interview.
President of NDA constituent Hindustani Awam Morcha and son of former CM Jitan Ram Majhi, Suman was among eight ministers sworn into the new Nitish cabinet Sunday. This is the third time he was sworn into the Bihar cabinet in four years.
“Nitishji appeared cool and relaxed during the NDA tenure. But during the mahagathbandhan government, I have seen his body language change,” he said. “He always looked tense. He was always under pressure, either due to administrative decisions or the pressure to save unwanted persons.”
The mahagathabandhan government, which fell earlier this week, formerly comprised Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress, and the Left Front. Earlier this week, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) broke away from the alliance and returned to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance less than two years after dumping it.
Suman’s Hindustani Awam Morcha, a party founded by his father Jitan Ram Manjhi, was also a constituent of the mahagathabandhan and is currently part of the NDA. Considered a close confidant of Nitish, Jatin Ram Manjhi was expelled from the JD (U) in 2015, when he refused to give up his chief minister’s position to make way for Nitish.
Today, the Hindustani Awam Morcha, founded soon after Manjhi’s expulsion, has four MLAs in Bihar’s 243-member assembly.
“Even while we were in the mahagathbandhan government, my father always advised Nitishji to snap ties with RJD saying that such an alliance was hurting the sections that supported him. When we quit the government last year, I had said that this government would not last,” Suman said.
Had RJD supremo Lalu Yadav offered him the deputy CM’s position earlier this month in a bid to form a government without Nitish? “Not Lalu ji directly,” Suman said. “But there were people close to him who approached me with the offer saying that they would talk with Laluji and get back. I told them that we are firmly behind BJP and PM Narendra Modi.”
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‘We never hesitate to speak the truth’
Suman, a Musahar leader, was the minister Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Welfare minister when he resigned in June. According to the Bihar government’s caste survey conducted last year, Musahars form 3 percent of the state’s population.
Suman however, claims there’s an error in the survey.
“Over 30 percent of the Mushar population have left Bihar and settled outside the state,” he said. “They (the government) separately conducted a separate survey of a caste group, which, for all practical purposes, is also Musahar. I will be asking for a rectification,” he said.
Suman, who has a PhD in political science from Bihar’s Magadh University, said he was an active member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) — the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — even though his father was a former Congressman-turned-socialist leader.
“My father is my role model. The son of bonded labourers, he got himself an education himself, quit a government job, and rose to the post of Bihar CM. When he was removed in 2015, Hindustani Awam Morcha was accidentally born and I thought I should help my father,” he said.
Does his father, Jitan Ram Manhji, have a rocky relationship with Nitish? That, Suman says, is a misconception, before quickly adding: “But we (Hindustani Awam Morcha) never hesitate to speak out the truth”.
The current government, he said, will complete its tenure.
“People make mistakes. Nitish ji realised that he made a mistake by joining hands with the RJD. He will not go anywhere now. I see a bright future for Bihar in which development will be the key issue,” he said, adding that he is looking to contest the 2024 general election from the reserved Gaya parliamentary seat.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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