Patna, March 19:By nominating 12 members to the Bihar legislative council through the Governor's quota the BJP and the JD(U) may have tried to make social equations more potent, but there is disappointment among other constituents of the NDA.
The Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) have expressed their displeasure over not having a say in the nomination of members to the Governor's quota. Both parties say that the opinion of the parties which are part of the NDA was not taken into consideration before the nominations were announced.
Even before the nomination for the 12 seats, both the HAM and the VIP had demanded one seat each, but during the time when nominations took place, the BJP and the JD(U) split six seats each among themselves.
Commenting on the Legislative Council nominations, VIP Spokesperson Rajiv Mishra said coalition principles were not followed. The party's National President Mukesh Sahani held a press conference during the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections and said his party would make an MLC from the Nonia community. He expressed his displeasure at the move and said the VIP should have been consulted on it.
HAM President Jitan Ram Manjhi said he was visibly upset. He said,"Whatever 12 Legislative Council members have been nominated, it would have been fair had the leaders of all the constituent parties in the NDA been called and consulted. But such a thing did not happen. Somewhere there is a mistake committed. We did not expect this from Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar."
Manjhi, however, also said that Nitish generally takes decisions taking along all its allies along. Why such a thing happened in this case is surprising.
The JD(U) and the BJP have tried to make the social equations more potent through the nomination of MLC members. JD(U) has tried to further the 'Lav-Kush' equation by nominating Upendra Kushwaha, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) founder whose party merged with the JD(U) a few days ago, to the Bihar Upper House.
Apart from Kushwaha, minister Ashok Choudhary, Sanjay Singh, Ramvachan Rai, Sanjay Gandhi and Lallan Saraf have been nominated.
However, there is some disappointment within the JD(U). JD(U) Spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan said he was extremely upset with the decision regarding selection of the members of the state Legislative Council. He said the Kayastha caste has been ignored.
The BJP has tried to consolidate its vote bank by sending Janak Ram, Rajendra Gupta, Devesh Kumar, Ghanshyam Thakur, Pramod Kumar and Nivedita Singh to the state Legislative Council.
