Bihar Caste Survey: 27% Backward Classes, 36% Extremely Backward Classes…reports Asian Lite News
In wake of the release of the caste survey duty, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called for an all-party meeting on Tuesday to make policies in the interest of common people.
“The state government has released the report of the caste survey. We have called for an all party meeting where a senior officer of the government will give a detailed presentation about the survey report. Following that we will take the decision in the interest of common people,” he said.
The Nitish Kumar government has released the report of caste based survey where only the numbers of 215 castes are mentioned. During the survey, the state government had claimed that the social and financial status of people would also be released in the report. However, it is not the case till now.
Asked about the social and financial status of people not mentioned in the report, he said that let’s see what happens in the future. “For now, we want to know the views of every political party of the state,” he said.
Taking a dig at the Central government, Nitish Kumar said: “Are they doing anything? What idea do they have? Why are they not conducting census in the country? Why are they not giving additional reservation to Extremely Backward Caste people? Have they done anything for the SC ST. Centre is anti-Muslim.”
Nitish Kumar also hinted that Tejashwi Yadav is second in command after him and he would take decisions in his absence…reports Asian Lite News
After winning the trust vote in Bihar Assembly, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is exhorting his Mahagathbandhan alliance partners to unitedly work towards wiping out BJP from the Centre.
A meeting of the Mahagathbandhan’s leaders at the chief minister’s residence on Wednesday, deliberated on strategies to wipe out the Narendra Modi-led central government in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Finance Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, HAM chief Jitan Ram Manjhi, Congress leader Ajit Sharma and leaders of left parties besides the MLAs and MLCs of all the alliance partners were among those who attended the meet.
Nitish Kumar also hinted that Tejashwi Yadav is second in command after him and he would take decisions in his absence.
Participating in the discussion Tejashwi Yadav said that Mahagathbandhan aims at uprooting BJP from the centre for which the alliance partners of Mahagathbandhan have to stay united. This would not only give out a strong message to BJP but also encourage leaders of opposition parties in the rest of the country to stand against the communal forces.
Bihar slams ‘unholy’ JD-U, RJD alliance
In attempt to take on the Nitish Kumar-led ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) ahead of the 2024 general elections and the 2025 Bihar Assembly polls, the BJP has planned ‘pravas’ of senior leaders in each district of the state to connect with voters and its own cadres to expose the ‘unholy alliance’ of JD-U, RJD and others.
The BJP is also planning to be more aggressive against the ruling alliance.
As per the plan, members of Bihar BJP’s core group will hold meetings with influential and intellectual local people in each district and also interact with the cadres.
“The party’s state leadership will design a programme to establish connection with the rural population to boost the morale of the cadres in order to make the organisation future-ready to contest elections on its own,” a party insider said.
The party cadres will be the focus of all the BJP activities in Bihar as the state leadership has learnt that there is anger against the BJP leadership and ministers of the previous NDA government in state.
“Party cadre plays a key role in the electoral success of any political party and it has come to our notice that there is some anger among the workers at the ground level against BJP’s ministers in the previous government. Our leaders will reach out to the workers across the state to pacify their anger and motivate them to work for the party so that this unholy RJD, JD-U alliance is dislodged in the next elections,” the party insider said.
On the organisational front, the Bihar BJP has been asked to focus on ‘booth management’ by forming committees at each booth and appointing ‘Panna Pramukhs’ to start engagement with the voters and make the party visible across the state.
“During a recent meeting of the state BJP’s core group with the central leadership in Delhi, the state unit was directed to strengthen the party at the booth level and reach out to the villages. Special focus will given to the constituencies held by our former alliance partner JD-U, as those constituencies were neglected or ignored by us till now,” a senior BJP functionary said.
Another senior leader explained that the idea is to reach out to those communities that were so far been taken care of by JD-U.
“So many welfare and development schemes were announced by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, but Nitish Kumar’s government in Bihar took credit for them as we were in an alliance. Our workers will tell these communities that it was the Modi government that took the decisions for their welfare,” he said.
Karpoori Thakur headed the Janata Party government having amalgamated with the Bhartiya Jan Sangh which later turned into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)…reports Asian Lite News
At a time when the duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are dictating terms, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar not only challenged but also sent a message to the BJP and the RSS about his political daring without caring about the CBI, ED and the Income-Tax department.
Nitish Kumar, a socialist leader of Bihar, was elected as the chief minister for the eighth time.
Kumar, a product of the political school of Karpoori Thakur and Jayaprakash Narayan was influenced by the socialist ideology of these two great leaders of Bihar.
He was influenced by the social justice and making of a Samata Mulak Samaj ideology of Karpoori Thakur and also participated in the Sampoorna Kranti movement in 1977 led by Jayaprakash Narayan.
Nitish Kumar was born in a Kurmi family in Bakhtiyarpur town in Patna district on March 1, 1951. His father was an Ayurvedic doctor, Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh and his mother was Parmeshwari Devi.
He obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from the Bihar College of Engineering (now the National Institute of Technology NIT) Patna. During this period, he was influenced by the ideology of two-time former chief minister Karpoori Thakur (the first tenure of Karpoori Thakur was from December 22, 1970 to June 2, 1971 and his second tenure was from June 24, 1977 to April 21, 1979).
Karpoori Thakur headed the Janata Party government having amalgamated with the Bhartiya Jan Sangh which later turned into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Janata Party was influenced by the ideology of Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia. They broadly believed in the social philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar.
Karpoori Thakur, during his second tenure, had given 33% reservation to the Backwards in Bihar following the recommendation of the Mungeri Lal Commission. The Bhartiya Jan Sangh which was considered the party of the upper caste people, was not pleased with the decision. Leaders like Kailash Pati Mishra, the then finance minister in the Karpoori Thakur government, revolted against him in April 1979 and he lost his majority in the Bihar assembly.
At that time, Indira Gandhi was undoubtedly the strongest leader in the country. However, the Sampoorna Kranti movement of 1974 put the brakes on her political career.
The Allahabad High Court found Indira Gandhi guilty of rigging the election and imposed a ban for six years on her from contesting elections on June 12, 1975. Indira Gandhi, then imposed an Emergency on the country on June 25, 1975. During the Emergency, leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan, Karpoori Thakur, Ram Manohar Lohia and others were sent to jail. At that time, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and others joined the Janata Party and were also jailed.
Nitish Kumar was elected an MLA from Harnaut assembly constituency in Nalanda district in 1985.
In 1989, he contested the Lok Sabha election from Barh constituency in Patna district and won the seat. He was in the VP Singh government and served as union minister of state for agriculture and cooperatives.
VP Singh had implemented the Mandal commission report in the country and the BJP which had 88 MPs had withdrawn its support to Singh. At that time, the Mandal Vs Kamandal politics was going on and BJP leader LK Advani started his Rath Yatra for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
When the 10th Lok Sabha election was held in 1991, Nitish Kumar was elected again on the ticket of Janata Dal from Barh constituency.
Lalu Prasad Yadav had emerged as the social justice leader of Bihar with his strong vote bank of the Yadav and Muslim communities. He gave strength to the backward, extremely backward, marginalised communities of Bihar and became the strongest leader in Bihar. He became chief minister in 1990 for the first time with the Janata Dal.
Socialist leaders George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar then left the Janata Dal and led the foundation of the Samata Party whose ideology was secularism.
Nitish Kumar was again elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 with the Samata Party from Barh and George Fernandes won the seat from Nalanda.
He then went with the BJP in the 13-day government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. When asked why he went with a party whose ideology was just the opposite to his socialist ideology, he told mediapersons that political survival against Lalu Prasad was more important then socialist ideology. This is the survival strength of Nitish Kumar and this is the reason why he became the chief minister of Bihar for the eighth time.
He was again elected in 1998 to the 12th Lok Sabha and served as union minister for railways with the additional charge of the surface transport ministry.
In 1999, he was elected again to the Lok Sabha and became the union minister of railways, surface transport and agriculture in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
He first became the chief minister of Bihar from March 3, 2000 to March 10, 2000.
He contested the Lok Sabha election in 2000 and again served as the union minister of railways and agriculture in the Vajpayee government.
By then, Nitish Kumar had become the tallest leader of the Kurmi-Koiri and other backward class communities. That was the phase when Lalu Prasad was facing charges of fodder scam, and a number of massacres during the first tenure of his wife Rabri Devi’s government from 1996 to 2000.
Nitish Kumar got good support from the backward class apart from his traditional Kurmi-Koiri vote bank. He merged his Samata Party into the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) in 2003. During the 2005 assembly elections, the JD-U managed to win 88 seats and became the single largest party in Bihar. He formed the government in Bihar with the help of the BJP.
Nitish Kumar got the tag of Sushasan Babu of Bihar with a number of welfare schemes like giving reservations to backward classes in government jobs. He gave 50% reservation to women in the electoral process of Panchayati Raj. He worked for social justice in his first term and managed to uproot organised crime like kidnapping for ransom in the state.
He gained the support of the people of Bihar and the JD-U managed to win 118 seats in 2010 assembly election.
As per the statement of senior leader Lalan Singh on Wednesday, Nitish Kumar could have easily formed the government in Bihar but he took the BJP in the government and respected the alliance partner.
In 2013, when the BJP nominated Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the NDA, Nitish Kumar objected to it and came out of the NDA.
Modi, Shah
During the Modi wave in 2014, the JD-U fared badly in the Lok Sabha elections. Nitish Kumar took the responsibility for it and resigned as chief minister. Jitan Ram Manjhi became the CM.
Nitish Kumar took over as chief minister again from Jitan Ram Manjhi in November 2014 and formed an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD. They made the Mahagathbandhan and also included the Congress party. They won the 2015 assembly election on the formula of 100: 100 seats to the RJD and the JD-U and 43 seats to the Congress.
Lalu Prasad, in 2015 announced that Nitish Kumar will be the chief minister’s face of the Mahagathbandhan. When the election results came in, the RJD won 80 seats, the JD-U 73 and the Congress 29. They managed to stop the BJP at 53 seats in Bihar despite a strong Modi wave.
The RJD, despite having more seats than the JD-U, made Nitish Kumar the chief minister of Bihar.
Apart from Lalu Prasad, the other RJD leaders thought that the chief minister’s post should come to the RJD, and they started targeting Nitish Kumar. A war of words started between the RJD and the JD-U. Nitish Kumar, who has one of the sharpest political brains, started looking for an opportunity and he picked on the corruption charges against Tejashwi Yadav in the IRCTC scam as an ideal excuse for him to come out from the Mahagathbandhan.
Though Lalan Singh, the national president of the JD-U, clarified during a press meet on August 10, 2022 that there were four leaders including Sanjay Jha, Harivansh, RCP Singh and another leader who gave him wrong advice to break the alliance with the RJD and the Congress and join the NDA.
Nitish Kumar joined the NDA in 2017 and formed the government with the help of 53 MLAs of the BJP in Bihar.
In the 2020 assembly election, Nitish Kumar contested under the umbrella of the NDA and became the chief minister of Bihar for the 7th time. After the result of the election, JD-U leaders accused the BJP of back-stabbing their party.
When Nitish Kumar resigned from the post of Chief minister on August 9, he said: “I was not interested in holding the post of chief minister after the 2020 assembly election. They insisted on me. Today’s BJP has a different ideology then the BJP of Atal Ji and Advani Ji.”
“The way BJP was trying to sabotage our party, we have discussed aspects with our MPs, MLAs and MLCs and every one suggested that I come out from the NDA. We have listened to their voices and resigned from the post of chief minister,” Kumar said.
“The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was formed in 1996 and at that time respected Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and George Fernandes were the leaders. The JD-U was associated with the NDA for the next 17 years. The reason was Atal Ji, Advani Ji, MM Joshi Ji, and George Saheb were respecting the coalition partners. Those leaders had principles to respect the coalition partners. And what happened now, BJP is back-stabbing its coalition partners,” Lalan Singh said.
“During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP wanted to win the polls. Hence, its leaders did not do any mischief. When it came to the 2020 assembly election of Bihar, what they did, BJP leaders back-stabbed us and weakened us,” Lalan Singh said.
BJP has Saptrishis and Panna Pramukh which work at booth levels. The new government under the leadership of Nitish Kumar is likely to target those workers…reports Asian Lite News
With Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav taking oaths as chief minister and deputy chief minister of Bihar on Wednesday, the going for BJP will sure not be smooth in the state.
Soon after the JD(U)-BJP split, a police official pasted “former” against the name plate of deputy chief minister Tar Kishore Prasad.
According to sources, the new government will go hard on BJP leaders and workers if they caught on the wrong sie of the law.
The primary objective of the new Nitish Kumar government is to destroy the structural organisation of BJP and RSS in Bihar, they added.
Kumar may give Tejashwi Yadav a charge to carry out a “surgical strike” on BJP and RSS sympathisers. If they were involved in any communal activities, strong action can be expected in a bid to weaken the structures of the saffron brigade.
BJP has Saptrishis and Panna Pramukh which work at booth levels. The new government under the leadership of Nitish Kumar is likely to target those workers.
JD-U has already levelled serious allegations against the BJP that it was involved in weakening the structure of former. Now, it is the right time to weaken the BJP and RSS in Bihar like Chief Minister Mamata Benerjee did in West Bengal ahead of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
BJP is already being criticised for price rise of essential commodities, apart from unemployment, terrorism, national security etc. It is also facing anti-incumbency sentiments across the country and Nitish Kumar, who is considered as having one of the sharpest political brains in the country, knew what would be the ideal time to take the position of his party.
Sources have said that BJP is aiming for “Opposition Mukt Bharat” in the country. Now, the opposition leaders are doing just the opposite and alienating BJP.
Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday said that BJP has no alliance partners in North India except Uttar Pradesh where extremely smaller parties are in alliance with it.
BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal has decided to stage a dharna outside the party office. He has also asked leaders of his party to do the same at district, block and Panchayat level.
Notably this time, the BJP has not taken an agressive stance after losing the government in Bihar. The ED, CBI, Income Tax effect are not being used by the central leadership as the JD(U) only hinted about the proof (Telephonic audio conversation) it has to expose the saffron leaders.
In case BJP uses the central agencies against Nitish Kumar or the leaders of Mahagathbandhan, he would use those proofs to ruin the image of BJP leaders. That may severely hit the preparation of BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
During the tenure of JD(U)-BJP government in Bihar, scandals like Srijan scam, Muzaffarpur shelter home case and others took place which are with CBI.
Nitish Kumar has also raked up some of the corruption cases against BJP ministers like Ram Surat Rai, who is facing charges of transfer-posting scam in the land reforms and revenue ministry , which he was owning during the JD-U-BJP combined government. Tar Kishore Prasad, the former chief minister of Bihar is also facing the charges of scam in the “Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal” programme when he was involved in allotting some contracts to his family members and relatives.
“Let the by-elections get over first, then only we will discuss this subject (caste-based Census). Till then, leave it,” Kumar said…reports Asian Lite News.
The stand of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar against the BJP over caste-based Census seems to have softened a bit in view of the upcoming by-elections in the state.
By-elections to Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan Assembly segments will be held on October 30. The counting will take place on November 2.
Nitish Kumar was challenging the BJP a week ago, claiming that caste-based Census is his priority. However, when the media asked about his stand on the issue now after the ‘Janta Darbar’ on Monday, the Chief Minister said that the matter would be taken up after bypolls.
“Let the by-elections get over first, then only we will discuss this subject (caste-based Census). Till then, leave it,” Kumar said.
The JD(U) is contesting in both Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan with outside support from the BJP. As a result, the ruling party cannot afford to lose the supporters of the BJP and RSS, which might be a reason for Nitish Kumar’s latest stand on the issue.
“We will call all the parties next month for a meeting wherein we will discuss this issue (caste-based Census). Whatever decision we take in this matter will be in the interest of all the parties,” Nitish Kumar said.
The Centre recently filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court wherein it refused to conduct caste-based Census in the country.
Last month, Nitish said that the caste census is necessary but the decision has to be taken by the Central government.
“The earlier caste-based census was conducted 90 years ago in 1931 during the British period and we have been following the same since then. This is not right. We should have to conduct a fresh caste census,” said Nitish Kumar, who returned in the afternoon after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with 10 leaders of different political parties, on Monday to the demand.
“The Prime Minister listened to each and every delegation member on Monday. All political parties have one view to conduct caste based census in the country. I am hopeful that the Prime Minister will consider our point of view,” he said.
The Bihar government had written to the Prime Minister on August 4, requesting him to give time so that an all-party delegation can meet him and put their point of view on this issue, a day after Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav suggested this course to Nitish Kumar.
