Political parties used the birth anniversary of Bihar's most respected backward caste political icon and former chief minister Karpoori Thakur to play the caste card on Sunday.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad, at a meeting at the state party office, pounced on Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's reported statement on review of caste-based reservation.
"She is in a constitutional post and it is very sad that she has made such a remark on reservation. Nobody will accept her what she said. If it had been in Parliament, she could have called an all-party meeting to advocate over such an issue but that was not place to give suggestion or opinion."
He said it was not the Speaker's jurisdiction to speak on the issue. "She occupies the Speaker's post and not that of a political party president," he said, accused the Sangh parivar to be "anti-quota" and "against the downtrodden".
In the run-up to the Assembly elections, Lalu had used the reported statement of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat demanding a review of the reservation policy. Despite repeated clarifications by the BJP and the RSS leaders, including that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the RJD chief was able to turn the tide that led to caste consolidation in favour of the Grand Alliance. The BJP, denied access to SK Memorial Hall to hold its event, demanded more quota for Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) and Dalits in the ensuing panchayat polls.
EBCs have 20 per cent quota, Dalits 16 per cent and Scheduled Tribes 1 per cent, introduced during the Nitish Kumar-led first NDA government.
Sushil Kumar Modi, addressing leaders and supporters at the party office, demanded that the quota be hiked to 50 per cent by increasing the quota of EBCs to 30 per cent and Dalits from 16 per cent to 19 per cent.
Raising the issue, Sushil Kumar Modi said: "In the past decade, more and more castes have been added to EBC and SC categories, thereby increasing the population in these groups. But the reservation to these group has remained unchanged," said Modi, adding that justice could be done to these groups only if there is an increase in their quota percentage."
The BJP, in this connection, demanded that a special session of the Assembly be held for passing a proposal in this connection before the panchayat poll dates are announced.
