Two days after losing the chief minister's seat to Nitish Kumar, Jitan Ram Manjhi looked and behaved like a wounded tiger, ready with a well-worked out plan to take the battle for the deprived sections (read the Dalits) ahead. For him, it is time to channelise the anger that Nitish has fuelled among poor people by showing their voice (read Manjhi) the door. He feels if he bows out midway, it would amount to deserting the cause of the marginalised sections. In a freewheeling chat with Nalin Verma of The Telegraph under a gazebo at 1 Aney Marg where he still resides, Manjhi, for the first time, revealed his concrete action plan for the battle ahead.

 

TT: What do you feel after losing chief minister's post to Nitish Kumar after a protracted battle?

Manjhi: I am an MLA for the sixth term. Posts come and go in politics. It does not matter to me at all. What matters to me are my principles and conviction to pursue those. I am feeling liberated now. In only two days, I have worked out the plan on how to go about from here.

TT: What is that plan?

M: We are going to organise Garib Swabhiman Karykarta Sammelan (conclave for the pride of poor people) at SK Memorial Hall here on February 28. There, I will announce to the poor people how I was tortured while working for their cause. I will gauge the people's response too.

TT: After that?

M: I have a well-worked out plan to move out and cover each and every district, telling poor people what I wanted to do for them and how I was stopped from doing so. My yatra (journey) will culminate in a rally on April 14, the birth anniversary of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar in which we will announce the formation of a new party independent of the BJP, the Congress and the Janata parivar. Subsequently, we will go in alliance with the party/parties, which accommodate our concerns for the marginalised sections.

TT:Some of your colleagues suggested that your February 28 conclave will comprise the real Janata Dal (United). Is it so?

M: No way. Of course, some of my colleagues suggested me not the leave the JDU tag. But I have rejected the idea. Once they (JDU) have dropped us from the party, it is time for us to stand on our own feet and be independent of them. Second, we will have many cadres in the congregation who do not come from the JDU camp. The marginalised sections of the society all over the country are looking at me. I have been getting calls from various parts of the country to champion the cause of the people on the periphery.

TT: You are no longer the CM. Neither have you grown yourself as a Dalit icon such as Ram Vilas Paswan and Mayawati nor do you look like having the strength and resources to carry forward your battle ahead. How will you last?

M: I was born as a son of a landless ploughman (Govind Ram Manjhi), serving as bonded labour to a landlord. I helped my father feed the landlord's oxen and buffalos. My condition of my family was extremely wretched. My parents brew country liquor in our home for a living. But I believe in Ishwariya kripa (God's inspiration). God inspired me to study, a work which Musahars (Manjhi's caste-men) did not even think of in the 1960s. Serving the poor people topped my agenda. But I graduated and joined a clerk's job in the posts and telegraph department in 1967 to support the education of my younger brother and my impoverished family. Once the family got the hand-to-mouth existence, I was back in people's service. I have served as a minister and chief minister for over 30 years and have an identity among the Dalits. How do you feel that I lack in resources and the strength to carry forward my struggle for them? I have more than adequate resources and energy, thanks to God.

TT: You are in your seventies now and recently you had stated that you will be happy to retire around 72-75 or so?

M: I have changed my mind now. I will fight for my people till the last drop in my blood. I am not going to bow out.

TT: There are talks doing the rounds that the JDU is preparing for your ghar wapsi and the BJP too is wooing you.

M: Let the talks do the rounds. I am doing my work.

TT: You have long been associated with Nitish Kumar. He got you work as a minister and then elevated you as the CM. What is your take on Nitish as a person and a leader?

M: I have repeatedly admitted that he made me the CM. What I have failed to understand is why did he personally not ask me to resign and explain the wrongs I was doing. I am still baffled why the party spokespersons and other second-rung party functionaries were employed to ask for my ouster. In my last meeting with him on February 7, I specifically told him (Nitish) that he had nominated me as the CM. Why was he not pin-pointing my mistakes and asking me to spare the chair for him? He (Nitish) suggested me that I should attend the legislature party meeting called by the party president, Sharad Yadav. I told him that why did Sharadji not ask me to call the legislature party meeting when I was the legislature party leader. Why did he call it on his own?

TT: What did Nitish tell you?

M: He kept mum. That's why I described him a Bhishma Pitamah who silently and meekly acquiesced Draupadi getting stripped of her modesty.

TT: When did you for the first time sense that Nitish was trying to replace you?

M: I never felt that he personally was trying to replace me. When I transferred the secretaries and top police officers on a large-scale in January, some people describing themselves close to him (Nitish) raised a hue and cry. I felt that I had done the correct thing as the people belonging to the poor sections happily responded to the administrative shuffle. But the vested interests upped the ante against me and Nitishji listen to them.

TT: The JDU has charged you of hobnobbing with the BJP to weaken Nitish and abort his mantra of growth with justice and susashan (good governance).

M: It is total bunkum. I was doing the work for the party, which had made me the CM. Even out of power, I am not going to hobnob with any party. I will pursue my agenda and I will befriend the parties that were accommodative to our concerns, simple.