Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and deposed Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi will criss-cross the State separately in the run up to the Assembly election and tell the people their side of story. While Nitish will tell them under what circumstances he had to come back to the office and Manjhi will reveal how and why he was removed unceremoniously.
Nitish will hold a conference of party workers here at Gandhi Maidan on March 1 which is seen as the forum to sound the bugle of election and will ask party workers to gird their loins. He will also tell them about the possible poll planks including the land acquisition Bill, special status to Bihar and the alleged failures of the Narendra Modi Government.
Manjhi is expected to launch a new party, since he was expelled from the JD(U). He will also hold a conference named Garib Swabhiman Karyakarta Sammelan (conference for the pride of poor people) on February 28. Manjhi is likely to announce about his party at a conference of his supporting political activists on February 28.
The former CM said that he would tell people how he was tortured and was not allowed to work for the cause of poor. He has planned to tour the entire State after Holi to inform the people that he was removed wrongly and reveal the 'humiliations' he underwent by Nitish and his supporters. In a nutshell, Nitish will be his target.
Manjhi will be accompanied by the eight Ministers who remained with him till last. The group is known as M-8 includes Narendra Singh, Brishen Patel, Nitish Mishra, Bheem Singh, Samrat Chaudhary, Vinay Bihari, Shahid Ali Khan and Mahachandra Prasad Singh.
On the formation of a new party, Nitish Mishra said as a first step a front would be formed and party would take a shape soon. He claimed that many JD(U) workers are dissatisfied with the party's functioning and support Manjhi.
Manjhi said some of his colleagues had suggested to remain in JD(U) by slightly making changes in nomenclature. "I do not agree with them because I do not want to maintain a tag of the party which expelled me," said Manjhi who is eyeing the Mahadalit society and expect it would fully back him.
Nitish, on the other hand, may chalk out plan of tour after the Budget Session of the Assembly which will continue till mid April and expected to start from March 11.
State JD(U) president Bashistha Narain Singh said the party workers are extremely jubilant after the return of Nitish as CM and hoped that the governance would come back on track and once again Bihar would be known for progress and prosperity. "In recent past Bihar had become a butt of joke due to certain developments," Singh said in an oblique reference to controversial statements by Manjhi.
Now in the election year, Nitish has a double duty: to streamline governance and restart the developmental works and to re-energise the party workers and prepare them for the polls. He also has an enormous job to keep the alliance with RJD and Congress intact and expand his constituency which might be adversely affected due to Manjhi factor.