PATNA: The Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) has planned a toss-up a mass influencing 'domicile policy' as an electoral agenda, ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.
After bringing up issues of reservation and special status, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has been making electoral promises to introduce this policy by reserving 85 per cent of government jobs for the native population of Bihar, if the party is voted to power.
Yadav’s statement assumed more political significance in the wake of a bench of the Jharkhand High Court that ruled that original residents of Bihar, including ones living in Jharkhand, were not entitled to reservation in government jobs in the state.
He had also demanded for a resolution on the domicile policy in the state legislative assembly recently that landed the NDA in a political quandary.
“Earlier, it was the reservation issue that was fanned and tossed up by Lalu Prasad Yadav to polarise the voters against the BJP and its allies of NDA in 2015.
"Now, the RJD's think-tank seems to have selected the domicile issue as one of the main influencing poll- promises for elections this year. I think it will put in the NDA in tight situation if not handled or countered intelligently,” said an experienced political observer and senior researcher of Public Administration wing at Patna, RK Sinha.
Tejashwi Yadav on Friday lambasted Bihar CM Nitish Kumar saying that latter lacks ‘will power’ in governance.
“The people are landing on the surface of moon but he is not being able to give jobs to 7 crore youths of Bihar. There is not only exodus of talent from Bihar but also money and resources are going out”, he alleged.
Chirag Paswan, who was recently questioned on the domicile policy in Patna, did not reply directly but said that all possible ways should be adopted to generate more employment for the people of Bihar.
Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, spokesperson of JD-U, said that the state government has generated a lot of employment in the state in the last 15 years.
“...Tejashwi Yadav has lost vision in his politics. Which is why he tries his worst to create an issue to mislead the people,” he said.
Meanwhile, the BJP termed this 'promise' as “an act of regional chauvinism’.
Nikhil Anand, spokesperson of BJP said, “BJP believes in the politics of nation-building by doing away the regional disparities and imbalances. The socio-political and cultural interests of every state must be protected and promoted but the domicile policy should not be promoted regional chauvinism.”