Caste is the biggest star in Bihar: Lalu Prasad Yadav

PATNA: Lalu Prasad is determined to keep the focus on caste divide in election-bound Bihar, throwing a spanner in the works of Bharatiya Janata Party, which is seeking to dissociate itself from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent suggestion of a review of the reservation policy and betting primarily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of development.
Caste is central to Bihar politics, the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and former CM told ET in an exclusive interview on Friday, projecting the upcoming polls as a battle between the upper castes represented by the BJP-led alliance and the backward castes under the Grand Alliance, which includes his party.“You cannot ignore caste. It is a reality in India,” Prasad said, seemingly undeterred by an Election Commission probe that he faces for raking up caste in a rally. “There are castes in animal world too. Elephants have castes. It is not a dirty word,” he added.
Prasad, who was quick to latch on to Bhagwat’s suggestion and slam BJP for its alleged attempt to deny backward caste communities the fruits of the reservation policy, has sharpened his attack even as RSS has said its chief was misunderstood and BJP was quick to clarify that it would not tinker with reservation. His tirade has put BJP so much on the defensive that the party has had to declare that if it wins its chief minister will be from a backward caste.
“The match is over for BJP. Both guru and chela (Modi and BJP president Amit Shah) will have to pack their bags after their defeat in Bihar,” Prasad said on Friday morning, sitting under a makeshift shed in the garden of his Circular Road house in Patna, before heading out on a day packed with eight election rallies.
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Prasad denied any differences with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Janata Dal (United) leader and his long-time foe-turned-partner, who is leading the Grand Alliance. He said he simply walked next door to his neighbour Kumar’s house if there was an issue to be discussed.
Linking caste to backwardness:
Linking caste to economic backwardness and reservation, Prasad quoted from the Constitution, Parliament debates and statistics culled from the central government’s Socio-Economic Caste Census. Armed with statistics from the caste census, he reeled off the figures — manual casual labourers, 51%; families living in one-room kuchcha house, 14%; landless households, 30%.
READ ALSO: Lalu Prasad's caste remark triggers war of words
“Go and ask people living in these conditions their caste and you will know. The government does not give even a second glance at the poor,” he said.
Equating caste with economic status, Prasad repeated his demand that the BJP government at the Centre make the caste data public. “The government is behaving like Soordas. How can they plan properly without taking the caste figures into account? The Constitution says that reservation has to be as per population,” he said. “Bhagwat blurted out the mann ki baat (real view) of RSS and BJP.” Prasad said BJP has already started the process of scrapping reservation in Rajasthan. “In Haryana, only a class-X pass person can contest panchayat elections. We all know, who all will be excluded in the process,” he said.
Pointing out that attempts were made earlier to introduce graduation as a criterion for contesting Lok Sabha elections, he said, “Thankfully that did not happen. Atal Behari Vajpayee lost elections to a less-educated candidate.”
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He further said, referring to his wife, “When Rabri won elections and became chief minister, they ridiculed her. First, you keep all backwards and weaker sections on the back bench, and then say they don’t require reservations. A total revolution is needed to bring them into the mainstream.”