New Delhi, Jun 24: Congress might be cosying up with Nitish Kumar lately, but seems oblivious of the fact that the Bihar chief minister had entered into politics with a “wound” because of “unjust” treatment given to his father by the party.
The claim has been made in a just-released book which says Congress had denied nomination to Kumar's freedom fighter father Ramlakhan Singh from Bakhtiyarpur in the first general elections to the Bihar assembly in 1952 as well in 1957.
Feeling hurt, Kumar's father ultimately decided to quit Congress and unsuccessfully fought against it from Janata Party, according to the book titled “Nitish Kumar and the rise of Bihar”, written by his childhood friend Arun Sinha.
“Somewhere deep in his mind Nitish felt his father had been treated unjustly by the Congress. His father had passed on his political wound to him,” it claims. Nitish's father was a freedom fighter.
He was also an ayurvedic practitioner at Bakhtiyarpur on the outskirts of Patna.
Mahatma Gandhi's “Quit India” call in 1942 saw Ramlakhan suspend his medical practice and plunge into the freedom movement.
He was arrested and accused with heinous charges and sent to jail.
Despite being active member of Congress party, Ramlakhan was dropped from the list for the 1951-52 election because neither of the two dominant Congress groups represented by Shri Krishna Singh and Anugraha Narayan Singh saw him fitting into overall strategy of giving due representation to all castes. Ramlakhan represented a backward caste.
