Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar attends a function on the occasion of Bhim Rao Ambedkar’s birth anniversary week in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, April 21: With his Mahadalit card paying off resoundingly, chief minister Nitish Kumar today resolved to take his “mission” for the uplift of the lowly sections among the Scheduled Castes beyond the boundary of Bihar.

“You should fan out in the whole country to propagate what the state government has done for the Mahadalits and champion their cause,” the chief minister told his party workers while addressing a function organised by the JD (U)’s Mahadalit cell to celebrate the birth anniversary of Bhim Rao Ambedkar.

Over 3,000 Mahadalit people from across the state gathered at SK Memorial Hall to listen to Nitish, who used the occasion to take a potshot on his rivals opposing the Mahadalit Commission constituted in 2007. “Some people remarked that I had been abusing the lowly among the Scheduled Castes (Mahadalits) and dividing the community when I constituted the commission.”

His obvious reference was towards the Dalit leader and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, who had described the Mahadalit word as “abusive” to the Dalit community. Paswan feared that by segregating a section of the Dalits from the bigger block of Scheduled Castes, Nitish was trying to impregnate into his Dalit bastion.

Nitish said: “Now, the Mahadalit word that we coined figures in the records of Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council which had recommended free foodgrain to the Mahadalits under the food security scheme.”

The chief minister asserted that the word Mahadalit had given a new identity to the lowly castes. “Now these caste men refer themselves as Mahadalits — a description that they find more honourable,” the chief minister said.

Nitish stood vindicated when Vijay Raut of Kaimur, who came all the way to the state capital to hear Nitish, said: “Twenty-one backward castes come under the Mahadalit Commission. Now, we don’t need to spell out our castes like Nat, Bhuia or Paswan, we call ourselves Mahadalit. It is more or less has become our identification.”

The chief minister suggested the Mahadalits to send their children to schools. “Unless you get your wards educated you will not achieve lasting progress,” he said, claiming that now only 3 per cent children hailing from the Mahadalit community were out of school against 7.3 per cent at the time he took over the reigns of the state in November 2005.