Bihar's ruling Janata Dal (United) (JD-U) party's lawmaker, Ratnesh Sada, was sworn-in on Friday as a Cabinet member after one of the alliance partners resigned from the Nitish Kumar-led state government.
According to media reports, Sada is likely to become a state minister replacing Santosh Suman, of the Hindustani Awam Morcha party, who had resigned from Cabinet on Tuesday.
Suman was Minister for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Welfare Department in the Bihar government.
While talking to the media after swearing in as the cabinet member, Sada who comes from the Musahar community - considered the weakest among Dalits - accused Suman and his father Jitan Ram Manjhi (founder of the Hindustani Awam Morcha party) of turning on State Chief Nitish Kumar because of their “insatiable greed and vaulting ambition”.
He even accused Manjhi of “paying lip service to Dalits, especially the Musahar community despite being a minister in several governments since the Eighties and a brief tenure as State Chief”.
“I see Kabeer ("Greatness") in Nitish Kumar. He has raised me, the son of a daily wage earner, to this level. I don't have words as I get overwhelmed with emotion. Jitan Ram Manjhi has been lawmaker since 1980. But he done nothing to improve the lot of the Dalits. He worked only for his family,” he said.
Suman recently resigned from the state Cabinet claiming that he had been under pressure to merge the party to which he belongs and which his father founded (Hindustani Awam Morcha) with Nitish Kumar’s JD-U party.
However, Suman emphasised that he was not withdrawing from the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance - the ruling alliance of Janata Dal United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Hindustani Awam Morcha) and he also alleged that his party had not been invited to attend the mega opposition rally on 23 June.
Bihar State Chief Nitish Kumar, however, alleged Suman was in touch with rival BJP politicians which prompted him to ask Suman to merge their parties or quit.
On not inviting Suman to the Opposition rally, Kumar said it wasn't advisable to invite him to the 23 June meeting as several leaders were worried that he would leak the details of the meeting to the BJP.