Patna, (Samajweekly) After the Bihar Assembly election results, Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Wednesday took a dig at Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan, saying the latter had cut the branch of the tree on which he sat.
“Despite being in the same camp, he made all efforts to ensure NDA’s defeat in the elections, which didn’t happen,” the former Chief Minister said.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had brought Manjhi into the NDA to target the Dalit vote bank. Earlier, Chirag Paswan-led LJP was attracting Dalit votes on NDA’s behest, but following a dispute between Paswan and Nitish Kumar over seat sharing, the LJP decided to go solo in the Bihar Assembly elections.
After separation, LJP contested on 134 seats and majority of the constituencies were those where the Janata Dal-United was contesting against the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan. It was a big loss for the JD-U, and the LJP did nothing but playing a spoilsport for the NDA as it could manage to win only one seat.
On the other hand, HAM (S) managed to win four out of seven seats on which it had contested. These seven seats were given to HAM (S) from JD-U quota.
Another NDA ally Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) has bagged four seats, though its chief Mukesh Sahani lost from Simari Baktiyarpur.
