Bihar

Manjhi met Bihar Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar in Raj Bhawan on Monday and submitted the official letter of withdrawal of the support of his four MLAs from the Mahagathbandhan. "My party had given support during the formation of Mahagathbandhan... now, we are withdrawing it," Manjhi said.

"If Nitish Kumar has any proof about me, then he should disclose it in the public domain. We do not have such blood or nature to do spying and pass the messages from one place to another," Manjhi said while interacting with media persons in Gaya. "The real truth was Nitish Kumar applying pressure on me to merge.

"I don't know about the early election, but I must say that Nitish Kumar is a forecaster now. He knows everything and we are not knowing anything," Singh said. Reacting to the opposition unity meeting in Patna on June 23, Singh said, "Everyone has the right to do the meeting, but I must say that Nitish Kumar is failing to control his own state and is trying to address the issues of the country."

"Due to illogical sand and liquor policies, the financial structure of Bihar has almost collapsed hitting the poor the most. I raise this point in every public meeting and in Assembly. Our party members questioned me on my association with the 'anti-people' government. Finally, I gave in to the people's demand and decided to quit the government," Manjhi said.

Due to the power of the Dalit vote bank, Ram Vilas Paswan always stayed with the ruling party at the Centre and became a Union minister several times. Due to the Mahadalit vote bank, Jitan Ram Manjhi became the chief minister of Bihar. With the recent moves of Manjhi, both the NDA and the Grand Alliance leaders are.

"We have served a notice to the construction company and recovered the money from it. The bank deposit will also be seized once the reply from their side comes. The Bihar government has already initiated an inquiry into the matter. IIT Roorkee has also been roped in for investigation. Once the report is out, strongest possible action would be taken against the company and the engineers involved," Yadav said.

He added that the presence of Congress was needed for the meeting. "Except for the Congress, the majority of the opposition political parties had agreed to meet in Patna on June 12. The Congress leadership was not comfortable with the venue.

"Since we have come together in Bihar and formed the government, they (BJP) are in a deep scare. They are frightened about what will happen in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and this fear is not leaving their hearts. I don't know if their fear would go or not but one thing is sure that they would be thrown out from power through people's mandate," Tejashwi Yadav said.

"The matter is in court, hence I don't want to comment on it. Let's see what is happening. We have taken the suggestions of all parties before starting the survey. Whatever decision was taken on caste based cum economic survey, it was not the decision of the state government but it is a decision of all parties.

"Those (Bageshwar Baba) who are talking about such things (Hindu nation) were not born when the country became independent and the Constitution was implemented. Would they change the name of the country? We have 7 communities in the country and everyone has the equal right to believe in their respective religions. We never make any obstructions to any. We respect every religion and they are free to worship their gods," he said after the inauguration of the Transport Department's new building here.