Manjhi’s son nominated to Bihar Legislative Council

Former chief minister of Bihar and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi’s son Santosh Suman was nominated to the Bihar Legislative Council, Upper House of the state legislature, by the RJD, barely a month after his father joined the RJD-led Grand Alliance after walking out of the NDA.

As per reports, a total of 11 council seats are going to fall vacant soon for which polling is scheduled on 26 April. A candidate is required to get votes of at least 21 legislators to win the elections.

Given the situation, the RJD which has a total of 80 members in the Bihar Assembly can win a maximum of four seats with support from the Congress, which has 27 members.

The RJD has finalised four names for the council polls. They include Rabri Devi, wife of jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad, Ram Chandra Purbe, state party chief, Santosh Suman and Mohsin Khursid.

Manjhi who was handed over the throne of Bihar by his mentor, chief minister Nitish Kumar, had joined the NDA camp ahead of the 2015 Assembly elections when he was removed from the post.

As per media reports, the NDA had promised to gift him gubernatorial post and a ministerial berth for his son in lieu of joining the camp.

In the next over two years, Manjhi kept on reminding the NDA leaders about the pre-poll promises and expressed annoyance over backing out from the promises but nothing worked.

Eventually, he reached out to the GA camp and was happily welcomed. The GA required his support to get Dalit votes in the elections. Unlike NDA, however, the RJD fulfilled the promises of Manjhi barely over a month of his joining.

Courtesy: Statesman News Service