BJP President J P Nadda.
Credit: PTI Photo
BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda on Thursday asserted that his party has always stood for the uplift of the Backward Classes and charged the rival Congress with having 'slept on' the Mandal Commission's recommendations.
Nadda made the averment in the Bihar capital, on his first visit to the state in nine months, barely three days after the Nitish Kumar government came out with a caste survey that revealed more than 60 per cent of the population was from Other Backward Classes and Extremely Backward Classes.
The BJP president, whose supposedly pro-upper caste party is feeling the heat of a possible OBC consolidation in the light of the findings of the survey, underscored that a fairly large number of 'our members in both Houses of the state legislature come from backward classes'.
He pointed out that the state first saw reservations for OBCs under the government headed by late socialist leader Karpoori Thakur, of which the Jan Sangh, the BJP's previous avatar, was a part.
He also said, 'Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi chose to sleep on the Mandal Commission report and it was not until VP Singh formed a government with the help of the BJP that its recommendations were implemented'.
'The Congress-led UPA remained in power for two consecutive terms, with Lalu Prasad''s RJD as a key ally. But the National Commission for OBCs was not granted constitutional status until Narendra Modi formed his government at the Centre,' added Nadda.
Notably, both Congress and RJD are alliance partners of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who helms the JD(U) and the three parties have played a key role in the formation of the INDIA coalition.
However, Nadda insisted that the new alliance was formed with the intent of 'saving political dynasties and those accused of corruption', even as he made a veiled dig at Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party, saying 'in Delhi one more wicket has fallen because of liquor scam'.
Notably, AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh was on Wednesday arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with alleged irregularities in the city government's liquor policy, months after former Deputy CM Manish Sisodiya and ex-minister Satyapal Jain were sent to jail in the same case.
Nadda also made a mention of Lalu Prasad's conviction in several fodder scam cases besides the fact that the RJD supremo, besides his wife Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadav, who is the Deputy CM of Bihar, was recently granted bail in another corruption case.
The BJP president said under Modi, 'four lakh OBCs have been admitted to central schools across the country. The poor have benefited from schemes like Ujjwala Yojana. Rural women's dignity has been restored with toilets.
'Besides, as per the International Monetary Fund, about 12 crore people, who were below poverty line, are now in the middle-income group. Less than one per cent of the country's population is now left in a state of extreme poverty'.
Nadda lauded Bihar BJP president Samrat Choudhary for having said in his speech that the party no longer wanted to 'carry others on our shoulders', an obvious reference to Nitish Kumar who had quit the NDA last year.
The BJP chief exhorted party workers to work towards winning all 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state next year, besides forming their own government in the assembly polls scheduled for 2025.
Nadda also lambasted the Congress-led UPA for its failure to get the Women's Reservation Bill passed during its tenure and claimed that the one for which the Modi government has secured the Parliament's nod will be 'implemented in state assemblies 2027 onwards and in the Lok Sabha in 2029'.
Nadda was addressing a function held on the birth anniversary of Kailashpati Mishra, one of the founding fathers of the BJP and a former Bihar minister, whose residence here he visited later in the day.
Several other leaders, including Union ministers like Giriraj Singh and Nityanand Rai also addressed the function.
The BJP national president, who always fondly recalls having spent his early days in Patna, also paid a visit to the memorial built where legendary socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan used to reside.
In his speech at Kailashpati Mishra''s birth anniversary, Nadda deplored Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad for tying up with the 'fourth generation of Nehru-Gandhi family against which Jayaprakash Narayan fought'.
He also reminded Prasad of his detention, during the Emergency, under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 'a reason why the RJD supremo gave the name Misa (the acronym) to his eldest daughter'.
The BJP president, who was given a rousing welcome upon arrival at the airport, reached the venue of the function for late Mishra's birth anniversary in a grand procession which was felicitated at numerous points during the nearly three-kilometer-long drive.