Patna: Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday launched a blistering attack on the BJP government at the Centre, accusing it of denying contribution of Muslims in the freedom struggle in a bid to communally polarise the society.
The RJD leader was addressing a symposium organised by his party here in the memory of Yusuf Meher Ali, a renowned freedom fighter and socialist thinker. "Our youth should know that it was Yusuf Meher Ali who had coined slogans like Quit India and Simon Go Back, which have been immortalised in the textbooks of modern Indian history. The current regime in the country wants to erase the contributions of minorities since it believes in a Hindu versus Muslim binary", said Yadav.
He added "We, on the other hand, are believers in the ideology of socialism and are committed to treading our own path despite all odds. Our socialist commitment has been there for all to see in the year-and-a-half since we formed a government headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, with the blessings of party supremo Lalu Prasad". Taking potshots at the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, Yadav said, "We have in a short period of time provided jobs to lakhs of people in Bihar. The current regime at the Centre makes a big show of recruiting a few thousand people across the country which has a population of one billion".
The deputy CM asserted that his government will be able to fulfil its promise of 10 lakh jobs "by 2025", the year in which the state will be facing its next assembly polls. Yadav said the ruling BJP at the Centre had been "banavati, milaavati aur dikhaavati" (full of contrivance, impurities and show off) and charged the party with being "anti-reservations". "Our government undertook a caste survey only because the Centre refused our request for a country-wide census. Despite then being in the opposition, I was part of the all-party delegation that had met the PM to press the demand", recalled Yadav.
"All sorts of hurdles were put in our way by the BJP which got its supporters to file petitions opposing the survey. Now that we have completed the exercise and followed it up with raising quotas for all deprived sections, some BJP leaders are openly threatening that it will be challenged in court", alleged the Bihar Deputy CM. He added, "To prevent such mischief, the cabinet has recommended that the laws raising the quotas be placed in the Ninth Schedule. The ball is now in the Centre's court".
Yadav also rubbished the allegation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the survey gave "inflated" numbers of Muslims and Yadavs, which would be to the detriment of other backward classes. "First of all, if the intention were to fudge figures, why didn't the survey increase the number of the chief minister's own caste", asked Yadav, referring to Kurmis having been shown as less than three per cent of the total population.
"Moreover, it is not just Yadavs, but OBCs and EBCs as a whole which have seen a rise in population percentage. Ditto for SCs and STs and all stand to benefit from the enhanced quotas. Bihar has now become the first state in the country with 75 per cent reservations for socially, educationally and economically weaker sections", asserted the RJD leader. He added, "We would also like to know on what basis does Amit Shah believe that the numbers are not accurate. We, at least, have scientifically carried out the study to fall back upon. If he really has a problem, then he would do better to order a caste survey and verify the figures instead of creating confusions".
