Chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and Nitish Kumar during the Sampark Yatra in Gaya on Wednesday. Picture by Suman

Gaya, Nov. 26: Former chief minister Nitish Kumar continued with his mission to build a personal contact with JDU workers in Gaya by asking them to be tolerant and stressing on the need to bridge the gap between the party leadership and the supporters.

Speaking at the Sampark Yatra meet here on Wednesday, his lessons on tolerance were aimed at a section of party workers shouting slogans on local party issues. Once again chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi put up a show of unity by participating in the meeting and called himself the “Lakshman” of Nitish Kumar.

The members stepped down from the dais, protesting that the Maulvi of a madarsa was given opportunity to address the meeting, although for a brief period.

The Maulvi of the madarsa, where Nitish had visited yesterday evening and had a cup of tea, requested the leader for an opportunity to speak. The party members, also from a minority community, said there are several workers here who have long association with the party and they should have been given an opportunity to speak. Later, those party members were found seated at the back on the dais.

In the beginning of his address at Sampark Yatra-cum-party workers’ meet, Nitish welcomed chief minister Manjhi for the meeting. Attacking the present organisational set up of the BJP, he said till Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the leader of the party, everything was fine.

“But after that problems started cropping up and therefore I decided to get separated from the alliance,” he said.

Nitish added that the present prime minister has failed to fulfil the promises made during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections that include bringing back black money from abroad. In fact, he (the PM) himself does not know the details of the stash cash. He used audio clips of the PM’s speech delivered during the Lok Sabha elections to drive his point.

Alleging discrimination with Bihar, he said funds allocation has been slashed in every field, including the backward region grant fund, Indira Awaas Yojana, prime minister rural road scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Terming Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana “an old liquor in new bottle”, Nitish said the poor are being cheated in the name of the scheme.

He added that nearly five crore new bank account holders under the scheme would not be getting accidental insurance benefit, as there has been no transaction in their account.