Making a mockery of statute norms

For nearly a week, Bihar was forced to be under a constitutional crisis. A chief minister - Jitan Ram Manjhi - seemingly lost the confidence of his own party MLAs and got reduced to a minority but governor Kesri Nath Tripathi was in no mood to accept that. Apparently guided by the NDA-ruled Centre, the governor finally allowed the confidence test not immediately but after a leisurely 10 days, leading to JD-U crying hoarse that horse-trading is on at the behest of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi.  A report…

To err is human. I too erred in choosing my successor,” candidly admitted former chief minister Nitish Kumar, barely an hour after Delhi Assembly election results started trickling in.

Apparently, taking a leaf out of Arvind Kejriwal’s book, where he apologised to the electorate for quitting as Delhi chief minister mid-way, Nitish admitted for the first time in public that he committed a mistake while handing over the reins to Jitan Ram Manjhi, the state’s first Mahadalit Chief Minister. “Now, it’s time for course correction,” he said, before leaving for New Delhi with 130 MLAs in two different flights.

Though officially, it was told that the 130 legislators from the Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and the CPI were flown from Patna to the national capital so that they could be paraded before the President (if required), actually the main purpose was to keep his flock intact and also keep possible deserters at arm’s length from the Manjhi camp. The ruling side, led by a handful of ministers, are leaving no stone unturned to poach MLAs who swear by Nitish. The allurements include ministerial berth, besides an assured ticket from the saffron camp (which the latter has now denied).

The Nitish camp, has claimed that
it enjoys the support of 99 out of 111
JD-U MLAs (Besides 24 legislators from the RJD, five from the Congress, one from the CPI and one independent), have so far stood by Nitish like a rock. This has disheartened the Manjhi camp, which is now seriously worried over its inability to shore up the numbers. Banking heavily on 87 MLAs of BJP (a party, which everyone suspects to be pulling string, but has so far remained non-committal to back the Mahadalit leader), Manjhi loyalists feel the saffron camp will eventually come to its aid during the floor test.
Governor Kesri Nath Tripathi has asked Manjhi to face a trial of strength immediately after he (Tripathi) addresses the joint session of the State legislature on the opening day of the Budget session on February 20. Upset over the prolonged period given to Manjhi to prove his majority, Nitish camp feels this could lead to horse-trading. But the Manjhi aides are more than confident that if the voting takes place through secret ballot, a large number of JD-U MLAs, who swear by Nitish, will eventually vote for Manjhi.
Nitish may be repenting now as to why he, owning the moral responsibility for party’s debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, quit. And why, of all persons, he chose Manjhi, who became more a liability than an asset?  Actually, Nitish’s intentions were not wrong. All he wanted was to empower the Mahadalit community, the poorest among the Dalits. Belonging to the lowest strata among the low social groups – Mushahars – a rat eating impoverished Mahadalit caste, Manjhi was a non-entity in JD-U till Nitish handpicked him up and made a known entity.  Manjhi began his political journey as a Congress MLA from Fatehpur in 1980. He won the 1985 poll too and became a minister in the Congress Government headed by Bindeshwari Dubey. Later, he joined the RJD and served as a minister in the Rabri Devi regime, before switching his allegiance to Nitish and joining his cabinet.

“Manjhi has always been on the winning side. In the 1980s, he was with the Congress. In the 1990s, he remained in the RJD before crossing over the fence to the JD-U. Now if he deserts JD-U and joins a new alliance, you can easily make out which way the wind is blowing in Bihar,” argued political commentator Ajay Kumar. But how will he prove his majority?

“There are now second thoughts even within the RJD which has split over supporting either Nitish or Manjhi. I have pleaded with Lalu ji not to join hands with Nitish as he is backed by two heavyweights – Lallan Singh and PK Sahi – the two persons responsible for Lalu’s arrest in fodder scam and his disqualification as an MP. While Lallan was the petitioner in the fodder scam, Sahi was the lawyer pleading the case,” the controversial RJD MP Pappu Yadav told Deccan Herald (Both Lallan and Sahi were ministers in JD-U Government, till Manjhi sacked them a few days back, and which eventually led to ‘split’ in the ruling party).
Dwindling support

Why suddenly the Manjhi camp, which claimed to enjoy majority in the Assembly, appears to be losing the battle midway? A Manjhi aide argued that there were three prime reasons why the support for Manjhi dwindled in the last few days. First, many JD-U leaders, who were constantly in touch with the BJP and ready to cross over the fence, were told categorically that they were welcome in the saffron camp but there was no guarantee that each of them would be given BJP tickets during the Assembly polls. Such JD-U legislators developed cold feet.

Secondly, the BJP precipitated the matter when it demanded that the only way out of this standoff was an early election. Those ruling party MLAs, who were earlier dissatisfied with Nitish’s style of functioning, were left with no alternative but to fall in line as no one wanted an early poll. The third reason was the complex social matrix. It was suggested that Manjhi, as a separate bloc, could back the BJP-led NDA and woo Mahadalits for the savffron camp. On paper, it looked a formidable combination if the 18 per cent Dalits/Mahadalits added muscle to the NDA which already enjoys support of upper castes (14 per cent) and 7 per cent Vaishyas (among backwards). But several JD-U rebels from anti-Nitish camp refused to join Manjhi after the CM dubbed the upper caste as foreigners.

But political scientist Ajay Kumar feels that Bihar was now heading much like Uttar Pradesh where the Dalits and OBCs are poles apart in the caste-ridden state. “After what Nitish has done to Manjhi, no Mahadalit worth his salt would like to support Nitish. Much like UP, where the Dalits abhor Yadavs, in Bihar too, a social realignment is on the cards. The Mahadalits, after being awakened by Manjhi, would not like to play second fiddle to OBCs like Kurmis (Nitish castemen) and Yadavs (Lalu’s castemen) anymore,” Kumar argued.