Afraid of having his fledgling grip on Bihar’s upper-caste voters loosen, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday hurried to the back foot a day after publicly saying that the state’s upper castes could no longer hope to become chief minister.
Although Mr Yadav was voicing Bihar’s current socio-political reality in the post-Mandal landscape, his choice of words proved too plain and crude for the purpose and the timing of the statement caused a stir in Bihar’s political circles, evoking damaging reactions from the ruling JD(U) and the BJP. The RJD chief was forced to deny his own words for fear of upsetting the upper-caste voters he is painstakingly trying to mobilise ahead of the October-November Assembly polls.
Speaking at a grand “milan samaroh” at the RJD’s state headquarters in Patna on Sunday, Mr Yadav had claimed that he had championed social justice in Bihar and said: “No leader from forward communities could now dream of becoming the chief minister of Bihar”. Attacking chief minister Nitish Kumar, he had added, “He (Kumar) has become the chief minister as a result of the freedom I gave to the backward castes, but he has destroyed the unity of the backward castes”.
The JD(U), decidedly alarmed at the RJD’s recent efforts for making inroads into the upper-caste vote base by inducting several upper-caste leaders, quickly pilloried Mr Yadav for his “habitual double standards”. JD(U) Bihar unit president Vijay Chaudhary said, “He is the only leader who can promise 10 per cent reservation to the upper castes and say in the same breath that they cannot rise to become chief minister. The people will not be foolish enough to fall in the trap of his habitual double standards”.