Patna: The Janata Dal United on Monday again raised its demand for reservation in the private sector and in the judiciary.

"Reservation in the private sector and judiciary is an old demand of the party. When the Mandal Commission recommendations were implemented in 1989, Nitish Kumar ji and Ram Vilas Paswanji had raised this demand," JDU national secretary-general and spokesperson K.C. Tyagi told The Telegraph.

Tyagi cited the 1992 Bhanwari Devi gangrape case in Rajasthan - in which a judge had wondered how a person from the upper caste could have sexual contact with someone from the lower caste - to buttress his point that reservation was required in the judiciary.

"There are many such cases where fair representation would have brought about a fair trial," Tyagi added.

The JDU leader's comments came a day after he snubbed his ally BJP for submitting a memorandum to Bihar director-general of police K.S. Dwivedi alleging the police's biased approach against Hindus in handling cases related to the recent communal flare-up in the state.

JDU sources said the party had decided to play the caste card to put pressure on the Centre at a time when discussions are on at the national level over Dalit rights being neglected after the Supreme Court ruling on the law protecting SCs and STs against atrocities.

Sensing that the BJP will not compromise with its agenda of Hindutva, which could damage the votebank of Nitish, the JDU is gearing up to woo the minorities and Dalits, the source said.

Giving the reason for the quote demand, Tyagi said: "Reservation in private sector and judicial service has become more important because the issues of SCs/STs and backwards have become the subject of a national debate. There is hardly any public sector left, even Air India is going to become private. Majority of the public sector undertakings have been finished after disinvestment, privatisation and globalisation."

The JDU accepted that challenges for the NDA have become bigger and Nitish and Paswan can play a pivotal role in meeting them.

"We are not putting any pressure on the NDA, rather we want to strengthen the NDA. There are many challenges ahead of the NDA, challenges are coming from farmers, challenges are coming from SC/ST, EBC and minorities also. So to meet these challenges, we have to be seen as pro-people, pro-poor, pro-marginalised sections. If communal division was the success mantra, why did the BJP lose Gorakhpur? I am not saying it is the mindset of the BJP, but the work of some fringe group. So we have to be alert after the Gorakhpur bypoll result," Tyagi stressed.