The JD(U) and RJD, the two parties heading for merger along with four other Janata Parivar constituents, are facing the speed breaker in the merger process with Jitan Ram Manjhi in the ruling JD(U) and Rajesh Ranjan aka Pappu Yadav have revolted against the merger. The leadership of both the parties, though, claimed their opposition was of little consequence and their doors are open for the dissidents for exit.
Pappu Yadav, the RJD MP from Madhepura, is in a rebellion mood against party supremo lalu Prasad and almost prepared to quit the party provided he is asked by lalu. Pappu, acquitted by the Patna High court last year in connection with the murder of CPM leader Ajit Sarkar, staked claim to be political heir of lalu. The RJD supremo has publicly admonished him for nurturing such an ambition saying only his son can be his political heir and not Pappu. But the Madhepura MP is insisting that though he is not the son of lalu he could be his ‘dharma-putra’.
“I have been treating lalu as father figure since his sons had not born. Nobody on earth is more loyal to RJD chief than me,” he claimed at a public meeting and added that political heirs are decided by the public.
Union Minister of State Giriraj Singh, who was recently in the eye of storm for his racist comment on Sonia Gandhi, also supported Pappu’s stand and said lalu himself had been saying that king was not born from the womb of queen in the democracy so why was he declaring his son as heir rather than waiting for peoples’ verdict. In JD(U), former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and his followers have raised banner of revolt against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his decisions to merge the party.
Sharpening his attack on Nitish as well as on lalu, the Mahdalit leader said, “lalu is encouraging parivarvad (dynastic rule) by declaring his son as his heir as if he belongs to royal family. Whenever a person from deprived section comes to power some people have pain and conspire to remove him. This happened with Karpoori Thakur and Ram Sundar Das and with me too.”
Incidentally, both Manjhi and Pappu are inching towards the BJP which they refuted. Manjhi claimed that he would not join any party or alliance having Nitish in it and not rule out post poll alliance with the BJP. But the political observers feel that Manjhi has come to conclusion that the BJP would best suit him. But he would join the saffron party on his own terms and that is why he is sweating to make his “Garib Swabhiman Rally” in Patna on April 20 a big success. Most of Manjhi’s supporters including JD(U) legislators are not shy of confessing their intention to join the BJP before the Assembly election.
The BJP is apparently undecided to open doors for Manjhi even though the former CM called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders and lobbied for his entry in the party saying their common enemy is Nitish and all the forces should be united under one umbrella to take on the JD(U) leader in the Assembly election in the winter.