Nitish selects Jitan Ram Manjhi as new Bihar CM

After much speculation, Nitish Kumar, who put in his papers as the chief minister of Bihar, selected Jitan Ram Manjhi as the next CM of the state. Kumar submitted Manjhi’s name to Governor DY Patil on Monday evening.

Manjhi, the SC/ST minister in the Nitish Kumar government, was Janata Dal-United’s candidate for the Gaya constituency in the Lok Sabha elections. He lost to Bharatiya Janata Party's Hari Manjhi by a difference of almost two lakh votes. 

Complete Coverage: Elections 2014

Earlier, in the day, during the JD-U legislature party meet, it was decided that Nitish would select his successor. The now former Bihar CM had said that his decision to quit was not sentimental but a ‘hard political decision’.

“For whatever reasons, the mandate was not in my favour,” he said, a day after JD-U legislators insisted that he should take back his resignation and refused to choose another leader. With Manjhi as the new CM, Nitish says he will travel across Bihar to work for the party. 

Nitish added he was ready to take on the responsibility again if he won the mandate in the 2015 state assembly polls. “If people give me the mandate in 2015, I am ready to take on the responsibility again,” Nitish said.  

After the meet, Bihar JD-U president Basistha Narayan Singh told newsmen that it was decided that Kumar would continue to lead the party and coordinate between the party and the state government. He said the legislators accepted Kumar’s decision to stick to his decision to resign with a heavy heart and authorised him to choose a new leader to head the JD-U government.

Complete Coverage: Elections 2014

With inputs from PTI