Became CM due to my foolishness: Nitish targets Manjhi in House
Hindustan TimesBihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday lost his cool at his predecessor Jitan Ram Manjhi during a debate on reservation bills in the legislative assembly, saying that his “stupidity” had led Manjhi to hold the CM’s chair, with the remark evoking sharp protest from opposition BJP legislators who accused Kumar of “insulting a Dalit”. As Manjhi stressed the need for a proper mechanism to ensure that benefits of reservation reached the needy, an enraged Kumar got up from his seat and did not allow the former to finish his speech, even as several cabinet ministers were seen trying to calm the chief minister. Manjhi become the chief minister in May 2014, when Kumar had stepped down owning moral responsibility for the JD’s drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections. Later, Bihar BJP chief Samrat Choudhary and several party leaders went to Manjhi’s house and termed Kumar’s outburst as totally uncalled for and part of a design to “insult a senior Dalit leader”.