Jitan Manjhi Not Willing To Step Down From CM's Chair, JDU Top-brass Vexed

The noise of dissent in the JDU, the party in power in Bihar, is getting louder every day. More party leaders are now supporting CM Jitan Manjhi's decision of not stepping down from his post.

The party President Sharad Yadav has called for a meeting of JDU's joint legislature party on 7 February, but Manjhi has refused to attend the meeting saying that it is the CM's prerogative to call for such a meeting. The meeting was supposed to convince Manjhi to make way for the former CM Nitish Kumar to be reinstated.  

Parliamentary affairs minister Shrawan Kumar has told the media, “A meeting of JDU legislature party has been called on February 7 on the direction of party president Sharad Yadav.” when asked about the motive of the meeting he said that the meeting will be convened to look into the latest political situation of the state, including the leadership issue, besides other matters of top priority.  

Sharad Yadav met Kumar two times on Thursday, and then went down to meet the CM at his official residence; Yadav spent around an hour or so with Manjhi. It is reportedly said that that Yadav tried to convince Manjhi to step down so that Nitish can be reinstated; Manjhi is said to have refused to resign.     

The sources are saying that the JDU top-brass offered various perks to Manjhi such as including one the family members in the new cabinet, a ticket for his son in the coming assembly elections, an important post for himself in the party organization, but he refused all the propositions.

Sharad Yadav, however, is not willing to accept that any such meeting happened. He emphasizes that the meetings were a part of the preparatory work for the 15 February meeting of the party cadre at the Gandhi Maidan. “I went to Nitish Kumar’s residence to attend a training program of the JDU minority cell. I have already said that Manjhi’s removal is not on the party’s agenda,” he said.

A source of the JDU has said that the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is taking care of the merger of the Janata Parivar,  called Nitish and told him to take over the reins in Bihar and start the preparations for the coming assemble elections.

Sharad Yadav said that he was ignorant of Mulayam talking to Nitish over phone.

The Nitish Kumar camp is of the opinion that Kumar should be reinstated before the commencement of the budget session beginning from 20 February.  

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