Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has set the national agenda ahead of the 2024 general election with the caste survey conducted in the State, Janata Dal (United)‘s Rajiv Ranjan Singh said on Wednesday. In an interview with The Hindu, he also criticised the BJP for alleging large-scale irregularities in the survey’s data collection process during an all-party meeting in Patna on Tuesday.
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Countering the BJP’s claim, Mr. Singh said that they have not produced any concrete evidence to prove their assertion. “They are making these wild allegations, because they have been bent upon stalling the count, going till the Supreme Court, where the Solicitor-General himself argued against it. They can no longer whip up religious sentiments. The caste count exposes the unequal economic growth in different caste groups who will now demand answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Mr. Singh said.
Socio-economic profile to be released
Speaking at a public rally in Chhattisgarh a day after the caste survey’s findings were published, Mr. Modi said that the poor should have the first right to the country’s resources as they formed the biggest chunk of population. “It took the Prime Minister nine years to remember the poor! He claims India will be the third largest economy in the world if the BJP is re-elected in 2024. But can the country develop, if the person standing lower on the caste ladder remains poor?” Mr. Singh asked.
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The Bihar government will soon release the socio-economic profile of the caste groups too, he added noting that this would help in framing policies.
‘Mandal over Kamandal’
The issue, he maintained, will resonate across the country and will be one of the dominant narratives for the 2024 general election. “Nitish Kumar has set the agenda for the country. It is a demand that will emerge from each State. The people will force their governments to conduct similar counts. Look at Uttar Pradesh, there is already a growing chorus for it,” he said.
“Where will they run with their kamandal?” he asked, referring to a water pot used by spiritual leaders which, over the years, has become a metaphor for Hindutva politics. The Mandal will overpower the Kamandal, he asserted. The 1980 Mandal Commission had recommended reservations for other backward classes (OBCs), and has now become a shortcut reference to caste-centric politics.
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Mr. Singh questioned the Prime Minister’s credentials as an OBC leader, saying that he should be happy that the survey has shown a 10% increase in the share of the backward classes in the Bihar population in comparison to the last assessment in 1931, now pegging them at 63%. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims to be a champion of OBCs; the truth is that it is an image that he fabricated ahead of 2014. You can google it, the Ghanchi community that he comes from was included in the OBC list after he became Chief Minister of Gujarat,” he added.
Coalition ‘imbalance’
While the Opposition is exulting about stealing a march over the government, there are also voices that point to the imbalance that the count had exposed between the Bihar ruling coalition’s major partners, the JD(U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The Yadavs (14.26%) and Muslims (17.7%) who constitute the RJD’s core vote bank command the support of 32% of Bihar population. Mr. Kumar’s own Kurmi community, on the other hand, account for less than 3%. This has given fodder to political opponents demanding that Mr. Kumar should cede the Chief Minister’s chair to his deputy, the RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav.
Mr. Singh dismissed such demands as “negative propaganda”. The JD(U) president said, “What imbalance are they talking about? The extremely backward classes stand at 36%. This community has only been identified and carved out in Bihar by the CM.”