New Delhi: If the BJP is going all out to woo Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh to trump a likely alliance of rival parties, it is facing an aggressive RJD bid in Bihar to woo key scheduled castes leaders to corner the saffron party-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections next year.
Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who snapped his party's alliance with the BJP in February this year to join the RJD-led alliance, told PTI that NDA governments in the Centre and Bihar have been a disappointment for Dalits for Bihar with the community in the state staring at a crisis. The only option for Dalit leaders like him is to try out another alliance as the earlier one did not work, he said.
Another scheduled castes leader and former Assembly speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary left Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) earlier this week and announced his support to the Lalu Prasad-led RJD.
Incidentally, Manjhi and Choudhary have been rival leaders and the former Bihar chief minister had defeated the latter in Imamganj Assembly seat in 2015. With both of them now together in the RJD-led alliance, which includes the Congress, RJD leaders have been quick to claim that the development highlights an anti-BJP mood among Dalits.
Leaders follow the churning at the ground level. As of now I can say that 70 per cent of Dalits in Bihar are with the RJD. The leaders coming to us have their ears to the ground, RJD spokesperson Manoj said.