The Bihar Minister for Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes Welfare and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) leader, Santosh Kumar Suman, the son of ex-chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, resigned from the Nitish Kumar Cabinet Tuesday, charging that they had been under pressure to merge their party with the Janata Dal (United). Santosh asserted that the HAM (S) would not allow anyone to "subsume its identity". The HAM (S) has been part of seven-party Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) led by JD(U) supremo Nitish, which includes the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD and the Congress as its key constituents. The development has come 10 days before the first joint meeting of the Opposition parties to be held in Patna on June 23. Nitish has played a pivotal role in organising this mega conclave of about 18 Opposition parties, including the HAM(S). Although the expected walkout of the HAM(S) from the Mahagathbandhan in the coming days might not have any bearing on its Bihar government as the ruling coalition has 160 MLAs excluding the four legislators of the HAM(S) in the 243-member House, it would be a setback to the Grand Alliance ahead of the the mega show of Opposition unity at their June 23 Patna rally, which would chalk out their roadmap for taking on the Narendra Modi-led BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Suman told reporters: "For past few days, we had been under pressure from JD (U) to merge our party with it. We had got call from top JD (U) leaders. We flatly refused the offer saying that we cannot allow anyone to subsume our identity as a political party." Claiming that they are still part of the Mahagathbandhan, Suman said the HAM(S) would soon discuss its next course of action in consultation with the party's founder Jitan Ram Manjhi, who has lately been asking the Grand Alliance to give his party five Lok Sabha seats to contest in Bihar (which has 40 seats) in the 2024 general elections. The HAM (S), which has long been pressuring the JD (U) to give it another ministerial berth and an MLC seat, had sparked speculation about quitting the Grand Alliance when Manjhi had met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on April 14 this year to demand Bharat Ratna for Bihar's “mountain man” Dasrath Manjhi and former CMs, Dr Srikrishna Singh and Karpoori Thakur. Even though Manjhi had then said he was "firmly with Nitish Kumar", the latter had sensed his unease with the Mahagathbandhan earlier, telling a rally in Purnia on 25 February that "Manjhi is wavering as BJP is trying to win him over.” Despite Suman's claims, sources in the HAM (S) indicated that Manjhi "could return to NDA soon as BJP has been trying to make a strong alliance against the Nitish-led combination". The BJP OBC Morcha's national general secretary Nikhil Anand said: "Manjhi is a senior Dalit leader and former Bihar CM. He had been taking up issues related to Dalit welfare and asking tough questions on non-implementation of several Dalit welfare scheme. The JD (U) had been trying to dictate terms to him and a senior leader like him did the right thing by throwing cold water on JD (U)'s merger offer." RJD national spokesperson Subodh Kumar Mehta, however, told The Indian Express: "It is up to Jitan Ram Manjhi to decide whether he continues to stay the Bahujanwadi nationalist or go cultural nationalist. We hope he stays with our alliance and supports our bigger cause to defeat the BJP in the 2024 polls." JD (U)'s advisor and chief national spokesperson KC Tyagi said: "Politics of social justice should be done in totality. The trends of caste federations or parties are not good and should be discouraged".
