HAM(S) asks to contest 20 seats in Bihar Assembly election

NDA aims to win 225 seats in Bihar Assembly election; Jitan Ram Manjhi seeks 20 seats for HAM(S).

On the day the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar declared it was aiming to win 225 out of the total of 243 seats in the upcoming Bihar Assembly election, founder of the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) and Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Jitan Ram Manjhi asked for 20 seats for his party to contest.

“Though my party workers have claimed 40 seats, our party should get 20 seats from the NDA in the upcoming Assembly election, so that I can do whatever work I want to achieve in the government,” Mr. Manjhi said on Wednesday (January 15, 2024) , addressing party workers and leaders at a meeting in Jehanabad. He added that his party workers would soon congregate at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan and the decision taken by them “will be validated”.

HAM(S) had won only four seats — Imamganj, Barachatti, Tekari, and Sikandra — in the 2020 Bihar Assembly election. The next State Assembly election is due in October-November this year.

Mr. Manjhi won the 2024 General Election from Gaya Lok Sabha constituency, and his daughter-in-law Deepa Manjhi won the subsequent bypoll to the Imamganj Assembly seat he vacated upon his election as MP.

Mr. Manjhi also launched a sharp attack on the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the “double engine” government in the State under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

“In Bihar and at the Centre, ‘double engine governments’ are running successfully. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country is continuously making progress and it will be ahead of all countries by 2047,” Mr. Manjhi said, adding, “Never before has development taken place in Bihar in the way it has in the last 20 years of Nitish Kumar’s regime.”

“The way [RJD leader] Tejashwi Yadav is looking at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is the opposite of the way the people of Bihar are looking at him (Mr. Kumar). Bihar has made lot of progress under Mr. Kumar’s regime,” Mr. Manjhi said, in a rebuke directed at Mr. Yadav.