Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be in Bihar on Saturday to attend a conclave on measures taken by the central government for backward classes, BJP OBC Morcha president K Laxman said.
The conclave is being held as part of 10,000 “samajik sammelans” (social conferences) the OBC Morcha is organising across the country, Laxman told a press conference on Friday.
“We are approaching the Lok Sabha polls. The OBCs and the EBCs (extremely backward classes), which together comprise more than 50 per cent of the population, need to be told what the Modi government has done for them in the last 10 years,” he said.
The function which Shah will attend at Paliganj on the outskirts of Patna on Saturday is part of the drive, Laxman said.
He said steps like grant of constitutional status to the OBC Commission and quotas in NEET exams and Navodaya Vidyalas were proof of the government’s commitment to the betterment of backward classes.
Asked about the demand by a number of opposition parties that a “quota within quota” for female OBCs be introduced in the Women’s Reservation Bill, Laxman shot back: “They should first tell us why the sub-quota did not find a place in the draft legislation brought by the precious Congress-led UPA government.”
They are trying to find excuses to stall the Narendra Modi government’s attempt to ensure that women get their due, he claimed.
The BJP OBC Morcha chief also alleged that Rahul Gandhi’s barbs at the PM, questioning Modi’s OBC status, smacked of the “Congress’ hostility towards the OBCs, which has been on display since the times of Nehru”.
He claimed that “in a letter to the then chief ministers, Nehru had minced no words expressing his aversion to caste-based quotas. Report of the Kaka Kalelkar Commission gathered dust under Congress rule”.
“When V P Singh government, backed by the BJP, gave its nod to the Mandal Commission’s recommendations, the most vociferous opposition came from Rajiv Gandhi”, Laxman claimed.
He alleged that the RJD in Bihar and the Samajwadi Party in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh were led by people who “spoke about OBCs but worked only for their own families”.
Laxman also demanded an explanation why the United Front government, in which these parties were key allies, failed to consider OBC stalwart Karpoori Thakur and former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh for the Bharat Ratna.
He also alleged Jayant Chaudhary, the Rashtriya Lok Dal Chief who is also the grandson of the ex-PM, expressed his gratitude towards the Modi government for the highest civilian honour to his late grandfather, “humiliation and abuses were heaped on him by the Congress and its allies”.