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Nitish latest to fall victim to Raghunath Jha's style

Our Correspondent in Patna

This is not the first that the Samata Party rebel MP Raghunath Jha has raised the banner of revolt. In fact, his political career is cobbled with instances when he has switched horses midstream.

Among those he has turned against, after swearing fealty initially, are former chief minister Dr Jagannath Mishra, former minister of state for foreign affairs Hari Kishore Singh (who hails from his home district of Sitamarhi), former prime minister Chandra Shekhar. Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav was in fact, let down twice by Jha.

He started out as socialist, before switching sides about a dozen times. He was minister of state in the Dr Jagannath Mishra ministry in 1980, but when denied a ticket for the 1985 assembly elections he contested and won as an Independent.

He jumped on the Janata Dal bandwagon after its formation in 1989, and after the March 1990 assembly elections became health minister in Laloo Yadav's ministry.

However, when the Janata Dal split in November 1990, he joined Chandra Shekhar's Samajwadi Janata Party after charging Laloo Yadav with being a casteist.

But when the Shekhar government fell he mended fences with Laloo Yadav, who reinducted him into his ministry a year and a half later, in 1993.

Under Laloo Yadav he emerged powerful, and when the RJD chief went to jail in July 1997 it was Jha who was the most vocal supporter of Chief Minister Rabri Devi.

However, on the eve of the March 1998 parliamentary elections the relationship between Jha and Laloo soured. The former wanted to contest the Lok Sabha election, while the latter insisted that he remain minister in the Rabri ministry.

But Jha quit the party and publicly announced his eagerness to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. Taking off on D K Barooah, Jha issued the clarion call, 'Abki Bari Atal Bihari'.

With the state BJP leaders stonewalling his entry into the party, the Samata Party gave him a Lok Sabha ticket, but he lost the election.

It was then that Nitish Kumar came to his rescue and made him the state party chief. This created another controversy with senior leaders like Shivanand Tiwary, Shakuni Chaudhary and Brishen Patel quitting the party in protest.

A few months later, in March 1999 to be precise, Tiwary, Chaudhary and Patel joined the RJD stating that it was better to be with Laloo than work with Nitish Kumar, who they described as an autocrat.

Jha, who suffered successive defeats both in the Lok Sabha election in 1998 and in the assembly by-election in November 1998, finally bid goodbye to his home district Sitamarhi.

In the Lok Sabha elections of September 1999 he managed to get a Samata ticket from Gopalganj seat. This time he won.

However, when things were going smoothly he chose to challenge what he said was "the autocratic functioning of Nitish Kumar" who, let it be reminded, revived his political career.

Talking to rediff.com just before Friday's parallel state council meeting, Jha exuded confidence and said a majority of the delegates were with him.

On being pointedly asked as to why none of the 29 Bihar MLAs have so far come out openly on his side, Jha said: "MPs hamare saath hain, to hum log MLA ke piche thodhi ja rahe hain." (If the majority of the MPs are with us we are not going after MLAs).

EARLIER REPORTS:

Samata Party split averted
Nitish Kumar to quit Union Cabinet

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