PATNA: Terming the Bihar’s caste survey “flawed”, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday alleged that the Muslim and Yadav population was “deliberately shown inflated” in the survey by the state government over “pressure” from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad’s for “appeasement politics”.
According to the survey report, Yadavs constitute 14.3 per cent of Bihar’s population while and 17.7 per cent population is Muslims. The Bihar government will be tabling the survey report in the state Assembly in the winter session commencing on Monday.
Addressing an election meeting at Patahi Airport ground in Muzaffarpur, Shah dared Lalu to declare that he would make a leader from extremely backward classes chief minister of the state, if he was really a well-wisher of EBCs.
According to the survey, EBCs account for 36.01 per cent of the state population.He contended that there were two types of full forms of ‘JAM’. For BJP, ‘JAM’ stands for Jan Dhan account, Aadhaar, and Mobile but for the Bihar government, is – ‘Jativad’, ‘Parivarvad’, ‘Apradh’, and Minority appeasement’, he alleged. He added that the grand alliance partners in Bihar claimed themselves to be well-wishers of backward classes but the decision to conduct the caste-based survey was taken “when BJP was a part of the Nitish-led NDA government”.
Accused Congress of “boycotting” backward castes, he pointed out that 27 ministers in the Narendra Modi-led union government were from OBCs, accounting for over 35 per cent of cabinet strength. Shah said that Modi government accorded constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes. “Why did not Lalu do the same when UPA was in power for 19 years,” he questioned. Calling CM Nitish Kumar ‘Paltu Ram’ (turncoat), he accused him of disobeying the people’s mandate and claimed that BJP will bag all the 40 state seats in the 2024 general election.