On November 3, the state of Bihar went into polls in the second phase. Prior to that on Monday, November 2, the current president of LJP, Chirag Paswan had said that the current CM of Bihar, Nitish Kumar is a Palturam, a Hindi synonym for turncoat. In his assertions about the current CM of Bihar, Paswan Junior stated that the JD(U) leader had earlier disregarded the RJD and had later formed government with the same RJD in 2015. Chirag Paswan also added that it is highly possible that after the Bihar elections are over, Nitish Kumar may jump boat into the wagon of RJD led Mahagathbandhan.
Jiten Ram Manjhi, leader of the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), an ally with JD(U), recently stated that he personally had no doubts about the capacity of the current CM of Bihar- Nitish Kumar, who is being singled out by Chirag Paswan. Manjhi pointed out that there is no problem with the policies being rolled out by the government led by Nitish Kumar, but there are many issues in the implementation of his policies. This comment becomes relevant in the context of the complaints by the womenfolk in Bihar regarding the issue of prohibition and the works taken up by Sanjay Sahni, who contested from Ratnauli in Muzaffarpur district. Sanjay, a self-trained electrician had worked towards bringing reforms in the implementation of the MNREGA works in his locality. Jiten Manjhi also praised the Har ghar nal ka jal yojana of the JD(U) government under Nitish Kumar.
In an interesting turn of events, Jiten ram Manjhi had written a letter to the PM to investigate the death of RamVilas Paswan. The letter had underlined that there are several doubts that bring Chirag Paswan in question. This letter clearly depicts the trust-deficit that is prevalent between LJP and the other parties in alliance with BJP and JD(U) in the Bihar election 2020. This shows that after taking the baton of the party from Ram Vilas Paswan, Chirag Paswan might have stepped on too many toes, in his tirade against almost all parties except for BJP, which has brought discomfort within the NDA alliance in the season of the state polls. The JD(U) working president, Ashok Choudhary had recently told that it would be hard for Chirag-led LJP to remain in the NDA after all the allegations he made against the parties like JD(U).
LJP president might expect some leeway from RJD, given that Tejashwi Yadav had provided vocal support for him when he felt insulted by Nitish Kumar after the demise of Paswan Sr. but, his continuous volley of blames and allegations might potentially land him in a no-man’s land in Bihar polity, provided RJD-led Mahagathbandhan finds no use for him.