Modi govt 3.0: Once Nitish’s choice to fill in as Bihar CM, Jitan Ram Manjhi set to become Union Minister

HAM(S), along with the JD(U), is a constituent of the NDA in the Nitish Kumar-led government in Bihar and had backed the Nitish government with its four MLAs during the crucial trust vote this February.

Manjhi’s son Santosh Kumar Manjhi is a minister in the Nitish government. Manjhi, who had long been trying to bargain hard with the NDA, finally succeeded by now getting a ministerial berth at the Centre.

The former CM is the from Mushahar community, categorised as a Scheduled Caste (SC), and was Nitish Kumar’s surprise choice for CM in 2014, a choice dictated both by the 70-year-old’s surname and because he kept a low profile.

As CM, Manjhi was expected to keep the seat warm for Nitish who had resigned in a huff after a massive defeat in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. It marked a big moment for Manjhi’s Mushahar community, which comprises around 2% of the state’s voters. It was also only the third time that an SC leader had become the CM of Bihar, despite the caste churning that rose from its fertile politics. The others were Bhola Paswan Shastri and Ram Sunder Das.

Nitish was seen to have retained EBC and SC votes in the 2014 polls, besides those of his core constituency of OBC Koeris and Kurmis. Manjhi was a gamble to get the Mahadalits behind him too.

However, Nitish — who was candid in his admission at the time that he had “chosen Manjhi for CM post because he was not a leader” — was in for a surprise. Just two months in, Manjhi showed he was far from content remaining in the JD(U) leader’s shadow, so much so that Nitish returned as CM in February 2015, a few months before the Assembly polls. Manjhi, in turn, split and set up his own party, the (HAM(S), and joined the BJP-led NDA.

The 2015 Assembly results proved a non-starter for Manjhi, getting him only one seat and ensuring he had almost no bargaining power with the BJP. Then, Manji headed to the Mahagathbandhan though the Modi sweep in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls ensured the NDA had left little for anything else.

Born in the village of Mahkar in Khijrasarai of Gaya, Manjhi made his foray into politics early in his life, with his brother, who was in the Bihar Police, supporting him financially. He became an MLA from the Congress in 1980 and a minister in 1985. When the Congress’s fortunes declined with the rise of Lalu Prasad, he joined the Janata Dal and later the RJD. In 2015, he became a minister in the Nitish government.