In a caste conscious society in Bihar, nothing moves without flashing the caste identity. All the political parties do it but not as brazenly as the Congress did. It almost ‘advertised’ the caste of its important State leaders particularly those recently nominated as office bearers.
An over enthusiastic Congress worker put up billboards at strategic points in the State Capital with the photographs of these leaders apart from AICC president Rahul Gandhi and Bihar in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil identifying their castes.
Only the caste of former AICC chief Sonia Gandhi has not been revealed.
After much criticism and attack the hoardings have been pulled down with clarification that it were not official and party had nothing to do with its installation. Newly appointed state president Madan Mohan Jha – his photo was also there on the hoarding with Brahmin mentioned as his caste – said it was not official banner and has now been removed. “The intention of the person who installed it could be good but the party does not approve such casteist thing,” he said.
But the party worker Siddhartha Chhatriya who installed this banner with his own photo, without disclosing his own caste, said he came out with this after PM Narendra Modi accused Congress of being a pro-Muslim party. “I wanted to tell that in our new organisation and working committee we have representation of all sections of the society,” he explained.
The BJP attacked Congress for showing its “casteist face” by propagating the caste of its leaders. A BJP spokesman urged the Election Commission to take notice of this hoarding and take action against the party for violating the electoral norms. He said Congress president should also apologise for this brazen act.
But this is not the first time that Bihar Congress did this. Sometimes back during an election the party has released its list of candidates with their caste mentioned against their names. The list was also released to the media and only then the party had apologised and withdrew it.