Muzaffarpur/Patna, Nov 5 (PTI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday sought to discredit the caste survey conducted by the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, alleging that the number of “Muslims and Yadavs” in the state had been “deliberately inflated”.
Addressing a rally in the town of Muzaffarpur, Shah claimed that Kumar buckled under pressure from ally Lalu Prasad, who is a Yadav by caste and whose RJD counts on Muslims as core voters of the party.
Prasad’s son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy chief minister of Bihar, dubbed as “bakwaas” (nonsense) the charge made by the union home minister and wondered why the Centre was baulking at announcing a nationwide caste census, despite finding “fault” with the state survey.
Notably, the survey shows Yadavs, always believed to be the most populous caste of Bihar, as 14 per cent of the population. Muslims, whom a section of BJP leaders blames for “changes in demography”, were 17 per cent as per findings of the survey released last month, a less than one per cent increase since the 2011 census.
Tejashwi Yadav’s views were echoed by Rajiv Ranjan Singh “Lalan”, national president of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), who convened a special press conference to rebut the points made by Shah.
Lalan refuted the former BJP president’s claim of Other Backward Classes and Extremely Backward Classes getting a raw deal in the survey, pointing out “together they comprise more than 62 per cent of the population”.
Shah’s charge that law and order had “deteriorated” in Bihar since the BJP was stripped of power in August last year also met with repudiation from both Yadav and Lalan, who spoke to journalists in Patna separately.
While Yadav underscored the recent recruitment of 1.20 lakh teachers to claim “we are interested in distributing pens, it is the BJP which asks people to carry swords”, Lalan alluded to the slaying of former MP Atiq Ahmed in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh to stress that the saffron party did not have a great record of maintaining law and order.
The JD(U) president also took exception to Shah, widely regarded as the BJP’s principal strategist, explicitly stating that the ruling coalition in Bihar was pursuing a politics of “Muslim appeasement” which would “spell big trouble” for the communally sensitive districts bordering Nepal, West Bengal and Bangladesh (seemant kshetra).
“We grant equal respect to all religions, but we do not exploit religious sentiments for political gains”, said Lalan, who also accused the BJP of “always trying to generate communal frenzy and encash it electorally”.
The JD(U) president also mocked Shah’s averment that the BJP deserved its share of credit for the caste survey since it was sharing power in Bihar when the exercise was ordered.
“Shah would have done better to announce a caste census on the soil of Muzaffarpur”, said Lalan, adding “Nitish Kumar undertook the survey only after repeated requests for a nationwide census were rejected by the Centre”.
The JD(U) chief also bristled at Shah’s accusation of “betrayal of mandate of 2020” against Nitish Kumar, who had fought the assembly polls in alliance with the BJP.
“The BJP leader has conveniently forgotten the conspiracies his party had hatched against Nitish Kumar, first with the help of another party during the assembly polls, and later by enticing a trusted aide of the chief minister to weaken his own mentor”, alleged Lalan.
The allusion was to Chirag Paswan, the then Lok Janshakti Party chief who fielded candidates, many of them BJP rebels, in all seats contested by JD(U) in the assembly polls, and to RCP Singh, who got inducted into the Union cabinet without the approval of Nitish Kumar.
Shah’s claim that the alliance of arch-rivals Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad was like a mix of “oil and water” also met with derision from the JD(U) president who claimed “the BJP is daydreaming of winning all 40 seats in Bihar in Lok Sabha polls. Let the elections come. They will be reduced to zero”.
Lalan also berated Shah for claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pro-poor credentials were proved by the Centre’s decision to give free foodgrains to the poor for another five years.
“The credit goes to the Food Security Act brought by the previous Congress-led UPA government”, said the JD(U) president, whose party is a key constituent of the INDIA coalition.
To a query about Shah’s reference to the inauguration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya in January next year, Lalan said mockingly, “May the BJP leaders get some occupation as priests. Their political career is over, so fed up are the people with their false promises”. PTI PKD NAC BDC
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.