Jitan Ram Manjhi not willing to accept few seats

Patna: Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi seems to have caused fresh worries for the RJD by demanding “respectable seat share” to contest in the 2019 general elections.

On Thursday after meeting party leaders at his official residence in Patna he said that the “Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) is an old ally of the RJD and since our political base has also increased we demand a larger seat share to contest in the coming Lok Sabha elections”.

According to Mr Manjhi, HAM has a good presence in at least twenty Lok Sabha seats of the state and may contest pols on its own if RJD ignores his dema-nds for larger seat share.

Mr Manjhi, considered a strong mahadalit le-ader in Bihar, is the only MLA from his party. He had floated his own political party Hind-ustani Awam Morcha (Secular) in 2015.

When Nitish Kumar returned to NDA fold after forming a government with BJP in July 2017, Manjhi was kept out of the government.

His entry into the grand alliance was scripted by Tejashwi Yadav who has been trying to expand Grand Alliance in order to strengthen his political base in Bihar.

Sources said that uneasiness in HAM started brewing after Upendra Kushwaha entered into the grand alliance fold and demanded sizeable seat share.

Earlier this week after holding a core group meeting of his party, Jitan Ram Manjhi had said that he will not compromise on the issue of seat share and wants at least one seat more than what was being offered to Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP which is a late entrant into the grand alliance.

HAM insiders said that a coordination committee meeting to discuss the issue is likely to be held on February 18.

“We have already identified constituencies where our party would be fielding candidates for the Lok Sabha elections but we have decided to wait for another week before taking any decisions”, HAM leaders said.