Manjhi May settle for 40-odd seats
The party had asked for around 90 seats from BJP.
The Hindustani Awam Morcha, a new party floated by former Bihar Chief Minister and Dalit leader Jitan Ram Manjhi, is likely to settle for 40-odd seats, leaving the rest for BJP to contest in alliance with other smaller parties.
The HAM and BJP have been negotiating over seatdistribution prior to Bihar polls which are likely to be held in September.
A rally of HAM was held at the Talkatora Stadium in Delhi earlier this week.
Sources in HAM said that while the party, which is primarily banking on the Dalit vote, which amounts to 15% in the state, had demanded 90-odd seats from the BJP, out of the total 243 seats in the Assembly, it would be happy to get around 50 seats. “We would settle for 40-odd seats as the last recourse since we already have a dozen MLAs with us and around half a dozen MLCs. Anything less than 40-odd seats would not suit our purpose of expansion,” said a source.
Party sources said that they expected the combine to win the polls comfortably. “Despite protestations of bonhomie by the Janata Parivar, fact remains that Kurmis and Yadavs don’t get along and these are impor- tant vote banks for JDU and RJD respectively. Moreover, they have been opposing each other for so many years that they will find it very difficult to work together now. At the same time, the new generation of Yadavs is not as enamoured with Lalu Yadav anymore,” said a source. The source added that Pappu Yadav, who has floated Jan Kranti Adhikar Morcha after being expelled from RJD for challenging Lalu over projecting family members as successors, is expected to cut into Yadav votes, thus making the task of the BJP combine easier. Pappu Yadav is an MP from Bihar and is known to have a substantial hold in the Kosi belt of Madhepura, Saharsa, and Supaul.
Sources added that during his term as CM, before Nitish Kumar turned him out, Manjhi had patronised several leaders of the Muslim community who were likely to help him during the elections. “Our rally in Delhi saw good participation of Muslims,” said a source. With Sun Tzu’s Art of War in one hand and a series of explosive tweets on the other, the former IPL commissioner has held our headlines hostage for over a fortnight. Judging by his posts, he sees himself as a crusader who will expose the corrupt shenanigans of the politically powerful. Clearly, the sense of irony in all this is lost on him. Whether it is revealing a letter by AAP’s Rahul Mehra, who wrote t o “Lalitji” in 2008, pitching for exclusive F&B rights for all the IPL stadia; or casually mentioning a chance meeting with Priyanka and Robert Vadra at a London restaurant in the company of DLF’s Timmy Sarna at a time when they’re trying to play down Vadra’s close connect with DLF; or even snickering about an old three-day meeting with former Cabinet minister Kapil Sibbal at a wedding in Istanbul. The exposé about Mehra doesn’t reveal an illegal transaction, it’s just embarrassing for the AAP leader to attack LaMo on TV channels now without seeming biased. As for the others, no word of what was discussed at these meetings is revealed. In fact, “chance encounter at a London restaurant” is what Sharad Pawar used to explain away Lalit Modi’s charge that the NCP leader met him in London
recently. The sub plots make equally interesting reading. A letter dated June 2013 on Lalit Modi’s timeline gives out details about a certain Baba Desai of HDIL, a real estate tycoon about whom LaMo complained to the ICC, calling him a “punter and bookmaker” and alleged that as many as three cricketers — Suresh Raina, Dwayne Bravo and Ravinder Jadeja — were in close contact with him, as were Guru and Raj Kundra. Another name t hat should be investigated and has cropped up is that of Vivek Nagpal, owner of Shonk Technologies Ltd, who Lalit Modi claims is very close to President Pranab Mukherjee’s secretary Omita Paul. He hints that Nagpal could be a hawala operator and questions his nexus with Paul. In both these cases, instead of shooting the messenger, the message needs to be investigated. If either is true, it is worrying.
You can see the monu- mental ego looming large in a tweet which shows a picture of Chidambaram, Jaitley and President Pranab Mukherjee conferring. “Could they be talking about me” wonders Lalit Modi. Could they indeed? For what his grand pronouncement and notso-veiled threats on social media reveal is both the power and the paranoia of the man. Once given the okay to travel, Lalit Modi moved into exotic roaming mode and posted his itinerary all over social media. From eating ice cream in Florence; celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary in Venice; watching Real Madrid play in Santiago; to lunching with Fidel Castro’s oldest son; partying with Paris Hilton and his “sister” Naomi Campbell or taking a stroll down Tiananmen Square. Of course, all this is not to mention the trip to the cancer hospital in Lisbon and partying in quick relief afterwards at a friend’s wedding in the Spanish island of Ibiza.