Bihar's Mahadalit votes and the importance of being Jitan Ram Manjhi

By Ajay Kumar
Patna, June 11 In every election, the Dalit and Mahadalit voters of Bihar have played crucial roles in the victory and defeat of political parties and individual leaders.

Due to the power of the Dalit vote bank, Ram Vilas Paswan always stayed with the ruling party at the Centre and became a Union minister several times. Due to the Mahadalit vote bank, Jitan Ram Manjhi became the chief minister of Bihar. With the recent moves of Manjhi, both the NDA and the Grand Alliance leaders are hopeful that he would come their way and turn a winner for them.

Now, Ram Vilas's political successor and son Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi are the undoubted leaders of the Dalit voters in Bihar and they know their strength.

While Chirag Paswan has made his intention clear of going with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Manjhi is not opening his cards about which way he will go. He claimed that his relationship with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is unbreakable. He has taken an oath not to go with the others. This is one part of his politics and that he met senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi is another part of his politics.

Manjhi along with legislators of his party met Nitish Kumar recently and his son Santosh Kumar Suman claimed that the meeting was satisfactory. Manjhi also met Bihar Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar the next day.

Sources said that Manjhi is confused and not able to decide which way to go. During the meeting with Nitish Kumar, Suman claimed 5 seats for his party in the Lok Sabha election and his talks went in the right direction. On the other hand, sources said that Nitish Kumar offered him to merge his party JD-U for the Lok Sabha poll.

Manjhi, who belongs to the Mushar community having around 5% votes in Bihar, is crucial for the Lok Sabha election 2024.

The BJP wants to bring Jitan Ram Manjhi along with Chirag Paswan into the NDA to grab the Dalit and Mahadalit votes. However, Manjhi knows what kind of treatment the BJP meted out to the smaller parties in its alliance. The 2020 assembly election in Bihar was the prime example of this where the BJP reached 74 seats while the JD-U fell to 43 seats.

In Bihar, 16-17 per cent of the votes belong to the Dalit and Mahadalit communities and a sizable chunk of this is with Chirag Paswan. He is with the BJP and turned out to be more of a crowd puller compared to any other leader of the BJP. The by-polls in Mokama, Kurhani, Gopalganj and others were prime examples of it. Chirag Paswan is the political successor to Ram Vilas Paswan's legacy having a good hold on the Paswan and Dalit voters.

Jitan Ram Manjhi claims to be the most prominent leader of the Mushar community. He has good control in the Magadh zone. As per an approximate figure, a maximum of around 5.5 lakh Mushar voters are in his home district Gaya. Aurangabad has around 5 lakh, Nalanda, Nawada, Karakat, Khagaria have around 4 lakh such voters each. Sasaram, Ujiyarpur, Hajipur, Jahanabad, Buxar and Samastipur have 3.5 lakh each (Approx) and Arrah has 3 lakh voters.

Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats and 6 of them are reserved. In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, in the reserved category the LJP won 3 seats, two seats went to the BJP and one seat went to the JD-U. The Hindustani Awam Morcha led by Jitan Ram Manjhi has no MP in the Lok Sabha.

The real challenge for Nitish Kumar is to unite all the opposition parties and he does not want to lose his position or his campaign against the BJP. If Manjhi goes against Nitish Kumar in the Lok Sabha polls, he would influence the Mahadalit voters in at least one dozen seats.

"Jitan Ram Manjhi firmly believes that he would stay with Nitish Kumar. When two alliances form for any election, every side gives an offer but our party will stay with Nitish Kumar and the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance)," said Santosh Kumar Suman, son of Jitan Ram Manjhi and SC/ST minister in the Bihar government.

Mritunjay Tiwari, national spokesperson of the RJD, said: "Jitan Babu is a senior leader of the Mahagathbandhan and he will stay with us. He knows the current situation of the country and will take the decision to stay in the Mahagathbandhan."