Bihar polls: Jitan Ram Manjhi says HAMS didn’t protest NDA ‘kanjoosi’ on seat allocation
He said his demand for more seats was linked to his attempt to get “recognized political party” status from the Election Commission of India (ECI), without which he would “face humiliation in many places”.
“Our party has been in existence for 10 years but we are yet to become a recognized party; we are a registered party and hence face humiliation in many places,” Union Minister Manjhi told reporters here.
Talking about the benefits his party loses out on due to not getting the recognition, he added, “Election Commission calls multiple parties for meetings, so we are not called because only recognized parties are called. Then the voter lists which were distributed during elections, everyone else got it for free, but we did not.”
According to him, for these reasons he had called for contesting more than the six seats allocated to him, which could have met the minimum vote percentage requirement.
“As for the vote percentage (within the alliance), most of the votes went to the BJP (within the alliance), and then to me. The people wanted us, but they were stingy in giving seats, and since we were a disciplined party, we did not object then,” he said. The Election Commission of India has different types of recognition and registration of various political parties depending on the party’s performance in assembly or national elections. The ECI registers parties as “state parties” or “national parties”; The third category is “registered unrecognized political parties”. To become a recognized political party, a particular party must fulfill any of the following conditions: 1. secure at least 6% of the valid votes received in the state during the assembly elections, in addition to which the party having at least two MLAs returns to the assembly of that state; 2. Securing at least 6% of the total valid votes received during the Lok Sabha elections along with returning at least 1 member from that state to the Lok Sabha. 3. The party that wins at least 3% of the total number of seats in the parliament or at least 3 seats (whichever is more). 4. In the last election the party returned at least 1 member per 25 seats or any part thereof allocated to the state; 5. The candidates nominated by the party received at least 8% of the total valid votes.
HAM(S) is a currently unrecognized political party. The party, which is a part of the NDA, contested on 6 seats and won 5 of them. The party polled a total of 4,91,564 votes out of nearly 4.9 crore votes cast, bringing its vote share to only around 1%. In 2020, the party’s vote share, which won 7 seats and 4 seats, was only 0.89%.
Regarding the government formation and swearing-in ceremony in Bihar, Manjhi said that the swearing-in ceremony will take place on November 20 and that he only has public information on portfolio allocation. He said he probably read in the media that out of 35-26 ministers in the Nitish Kumar-led cabinet, 16 are from BJP, 14-15 are from JDU, 3 are from Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and 1-1 are from Hindustan Awam Morcha (S) and Rashtriya Lok Morcha.
The ruling NDA won 202 seats in the 243-member Assembly with a three-quarters majority. This is the second time the NDA crossed the 200 mark in the assembly polls. It had won 206 seats in the 2010 polls.
