PATNA: A youth threw a slipper towards Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar during a students’ conference organised by his party JD(U) on Thursday, saying he did so to vent his anger at what he termed as the NDA government’s “anti-upper caste policies”.
The slipper missed Kumar and landed on the front rows of the audience. The accused youth, Chandan Tiwary, was arrested after being beaten up by about a dozen JD(U) workers present at the Bapu Sabhagar auditorium in Patna, where the youth conference was organised.
The incident took place when Kumar, who is also JD(U) national president, was sitting on the dais along with the party’s state president Vashistha Narayan Singh and other JD(U) leaders. It sent the CM’s security personnel into a tizzy and the youth was apprehended immediately.
“What I did is the right thing. I did it to register my protest against the NDA government’s anti-upper caste policies. Lakhs of young people in Bihar are not getting jobs because of reservation, and Nitish Kumar is responsible for it,” said Tiwary while being taken away by police.
Showing his torn shirt, he said “Nitish Kumar’s goons” beat him up mercilessly before handing him over to police. “I and many others will continue to protest like this till the government takes steps in the interests of the upper castes,” said Tiwari, who hails from Aurangabad district.
Police sources said he is a member of the Savarn Sena, an outfit of upper-caste communities that has been staging protests across Bihar. Over the past month, Savarn Sena members have shown black flags to several senior BJP leaders in the state.
JD(U) had organised the students’ conference (Chhatra Samagam) on the occasion of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan’s birth anniversary. The programme is seen as the regional party’s attempt to woo college and university students ahead of the polls.
The upper castes in Bihar have been restive since the Centre restored the provision of immediate arrest in the SC-ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act after the Supreme Court struck it down. The upper castes have also been demanding reservation in government jobs and higher education.