Patna: Former chief minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) president Jitan Ram Manjhi on Thursday nudged chief minister Nitish Kumar to go for fresh elections and break the alliance with the BJP on issues of maintaining communal harmony and special category status to Bihar.

Manjhi suggested that Nitish should not have too much attachment to the chief minister's chair. Manjhi asked Nitish to learn lessons from Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

"He (Nitish) has nothing to do with the special category status to Bihar or maintaining communal harmony in the state. If he has guts he must break the alliance with the BJP and go for fresh elections to check how much people like him. If people find him good, he may get more support," Manjhi said, adding that Nitish has been fooling the society and the state from Day-I.

The special category status issue took a fresh turn after TDP withdrew support to the NDA after their "demand was not met".

Even Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav slammed Nitish alleging him for keeping mum over the issue.

A few days back, however, Nitish broke his silence over the issue claiming that not a single day passes when he does not think about the demand. Slamming Nitish, Manjhi said the chief minister has forgotten the demand of the special category status.

"I have not heard a single word from Nitish speaking on the special category status to Bihar for many months. I would rather congratulate Chandrababu Naidu who made his demand clear and showed the courage to withdraw support from the Narendra Modi government, asking his two ministers to resign from the cabinet, followed by moving a no-confidence motion in the Parliament against the NDA government," Manjhi said.

He suggested Nitish to do something similar on the lines of the Andhra Pradesh chief minister if he was really interested in getting the special category status to Bihar. Manjhi said such a move by Nitish will send out a strong message among the people of Bihar that he was really interested in bringing special status to Bihar.

"Nitish wants to enjoy the power and at the same time he wants special category status which cannot happen together. He is just making a mockery of the long-pending demand of Bihar and equally insulting the people of our state," Manjhi said.