The Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) on Wednesday (June 21) joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The announcement was made in Delhi after the party supremo Jitan Ram Manjhi and national president of the HAM(S) Santosh Suman met Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
On June 19, the HAM(S) withdrew support to the Nitish Kumar government and submitted the letter of withdrawal to Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar.
“From today onwards the HAM (S) is one of the partners of the NDA. We will now be supporting the NDA in every manner. No discussion on ticket distribution took place during the meeting,” Mr. Manjhi said.
The former Chief Minister of Bihar, Mr. Manjhi and his son Mr. Suman held a meeting with Mr. Shah for 45 minutes. Bihar BJP leader and Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai was also present at the meeting.
Charge against Nitish
Last week, Mr. Suman resigned from the Nitish Kumar Cabinet accusing Mr. Kumar of building pressure to merge the party with the Janata Dal (United). A day after Mr. Suman’s resignation, Mr. Kumar had accused Mr. Manjhi of playing the role of a spy for the BJP. Mr. Kumar said had Mr. Manjhi attended the Opposition meet, he would have told everything to the BJP.
Before the resignation of his son, Mr. Manjhi too was building pressure on Nitish and asking for five Lok Sabha seats.
“The meeting with Amit Shah ji was fruitful and in principle we have decided that the HAM (S) will be contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly election of 2024 and 2025 respectively in alliance with the BJP-led NDA. On seat distribution, we will hold further meetings. At present talking about seats is premature. However, one thing is clear that in 2024, Narendra Modi ji will become the Prime Minister once again. He is the most powerful leader of the country,” Mr. Suman said.
At present the HAM has four members in the Bihar Assembly and one member in the Legislative Council.
Meanwhile, former Deputy Chief Minister and Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Modi took a jibe on the Opposition meet scheduled in Patna on June 23.
‘Unity not possible’
Mr. Modi said Opposition unity was like weighing frogs and not possible at any cost.
“In the name of opposition unity, every party is imposing conditions. Mayawati, H.D. Kumaraswamy, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Naveen Patnaik, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy have already stepped aside. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is all set to conduct a constitution class at the very beginning of the meeting. Kejriwal’s condition is that the Congress should first declare its support on the issue of the ordinance. Kejriwal has even written a letter to everyone on this issue,” Mr. Modi said.
He further said, “The opposition parties are competing to hijack the agenda. NCP leader Sharad Pawar’s Common Minimum Programme, then Nitish Kumar’s strategy of putting a candidate against the BJP; the Congress wants first to talk on the agenda of stopping violence in Bengal’s panchayat elections. A weak Chief Minister [Nitish] with 44 MLAs was neither able to unite the scattered Janata Parivar nor would he be able to unite the opposition.”
