Patna: Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha is to contest on all the 243 seats in Bihar, leaders associated with the new political front informed. The official announcement to this will be made soon by the former chief minister Jitan Manjhi himself. The party decided to contest on all the seats as they felt that Manjhi was gaining popularity in Bihar and after his resignation from the post of the chief minister made him even more popular as supporters cutting across religious and castes lines hailed him and felt that he was being victimized by Nitish Kumar, HAM sources informed. The HAM leaders, they said were busy getting the front registered as a political party.

“There is no problem in forming a political party and we will soon do this, we may also announce that we will be contesting polls on all the 243 seats in Bihar. Senior leader have planned to announce the formation of the party and their decision to contest polls separately during the rally which is going to be held in April”, one of the leader associated with the HAM said.

They however refused to comment on the speculations regarding the HAM being backed by the saffron party. The leaders of Manjhi camp when asked about this refused to comment over the issue saying it was too early to decide. Surprisingly, some of the BJP leaders were seen taking keen interest in Manjhi’s HAM.

“Nitish Kumar scared by Manji’s popularity cancelled his cabinet orders and people are watching everything Manjhi has gained popularity in Bihar there is no doubt about it as far as our giving support to him is concerned will be decided by the central leaders but all our sympathies are with Manjhi and his HAM, let him first form a full fledged political party”, BJP spokesperson Vinod Narayan Jha said.

Pointing towards the growing support base of Manjhi the leaders of HAM said that senior leaders from different political parties have supported Manjhi and even some of them have gone against their party line in his favor. They said that RJD senior and veteran leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has already said that the merger of JD (U) and RJD would mean nothing without Jitan Ram Manjhi and his team.

“Mr. Manjhi is being hailed by everyone and even some of the leaders belonging to opponent camp defied their own party and extend their support to him and we are receiving calls from other states as well. His support base is growing”, HAM convener Brishin Patel said.

He further said, “leaders of Hindustani Awam Morcha have already hit the road and are meeting people at the district level, soon we will have strength to show which Nitish Kumar or any other party leaders wouldn’t have imagined and please don’t think that only dalits and mahadalits are with us there are people from all the caste and religion supporting us, we will show this during our rally in April”.