New Delhi, Sept. 21: The BJP today disowned Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohanrao Bhagwat's call for a second look at the reservations policy, scrambling to reaffirm its pro-quota credentials in the run-up to the Bihar polls.

Bhagwat had yesterday suggested a reassessment of which socially backward classes needed reservation and for how long, stirring the electoral pot in Bihar.

Lalu Prasad and the Janata Dal United have torn into his comments, made in an interview to Sangh weeklies Organiser and Panchjanya, alleging that a BJP government in Bihar would end job and education quotas.

Union minister and Bihar politician Ravi Shankar Prasad today rushed to tell the media that the BJP was "not in favour of any recommendation of reconsideration of reservation" to the Dalits, tribals and the Other Backward Classes.

A late-evening media statement from the BJP not just expressed support for reservation but even suggested its future extension to new groups.

It said the party "firmly believes that reservation is important for the social, education and economic development of these groups".

The BJP, therefore, is "not in favour of any reconsideration of these constitutional provisions" and, rather, would welcome "further measures for those who are economically and socially backward".

BJP managers are worried that Bhagwat's remarks could undermine the party's boast about fielding a "record" number of Dalit and OBC candidates in the Bihar elections.

Of the 153 tickets distributed, 65 have gone to the upper castes with Rajputs bagging 30, while 88 have been distributed among the OBCs, Dalits and Extremely Backward Classes.

The biggest gainers have been the Yadavs, a group the BJP had given a wide berth in the past assuming its loyalty to Lalu Prasad was impregnable. This time, 22 Yadavs have got BJP tickets.

Party president Amit Shah, the chief political strategist for the Bihar polls, crafted the Yadav outreach to unsettle the Rashtriya Janata Dal's stranglehold over the community's votes and breach its Muslim-Yadav vote bank.

BJP sources claimed that a large section of young Yadavs, "nurturing aspirations for a better life than that offered by the RJD", looked at the Narendra Modi-led BJP as an alternative.

Sources said the hint at fresh quotas for the "economically and socially backward" had come against the backdrop of the Patel protests in Gujarat.

The Patels, an intermediate caste as socially, politically and economically empowered as the Jats of north India and Maharashtra's Marathas, have launched an agitation for inclusion in the OBC category.

The movement, spearheaded by Hardik Patel, has resonated in the West too where sections of the Patel diaspora have threatened to show up on the streets during Modi's visit to America and, later, Britain.

"Gujarat is the backyard of Modi and Shah. We had to do a balancing act to mollify tempers in Bihar and not allow things to go out of hand in Gujarat," a source said.

Bhagwat's comments came days after the BJP had to cope with a Shiv Sena-instigated controversy. In Maharashtra, Sena transport minister Diwakar Raote had declared that a working knowledge of Marathi would be a must for obtaining autorickshaw permits in Mumbai. Raote's rationale was the rule would help "local" youths get jobs.

Mumbai's autorickshaw drivers include many migrants from Bihar, who feared losing their licences if the rule came into effect.

The BJP, which heads the Maharashtra coalition, kept mum. Later, party sources claimed the Sena was "merely" enforcing the Motor Vehicles Act, which allows taxi and autorickshaw permits only to those who have lived in Maharashtra for 15 years and have a working knowledge of the local language.

Lalu Prasad and the JDU have slammed Raote's stand in their campaigns.