Tejashwi challenges Manjhi, Paswan to contest from general seats amid quota row
RJD national working president Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday, August 30, alleged that Union ministers Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi were engaged in a war of words over sub-categorisation of reservation for the most deprived Dalit communities "under instruction from Nagpur", a reference to the RSS headquarters.
Yadav, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, accused the BJP and RSS of being "anti-reservation" and questioned the two leaders' association with the ruling alliance.
"Tejashwi Yadav has never availed of reservations, but both Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi avail of the facility. Yet they are aligned with anti-reservation BJP-RSS. Their spat must be upon instructions from Nagpur," Yadav said, apparently referring to the fact that the two Union ministers contest elections from reserved constituencies.
He challenged Paswan and Manjhi to resign from their ministerial posts and contest elections from a general seat.
Yadav was responding to questions about the war of words between Paswan, who heads the LJP (Ram Vilas), and Manjhi, founder of the Hindustani Awam Morcha, over the issue of "quota within quota".
Paswan, the Lok Sabha MP from Hajipur, had on Saturday objected to Manjhi and his son speaking in favour of a sub-quota and challenged them to resign and acknowledge that they belong to the "creamy layer".
Manjhi, the Lok Sabha MP from Gaya, and his son Santosh Kumar Suman, a minister in the Bihar government, hit back, saying Paswan should instead resign for failing to understand the need for targeted development of the most marginalised Dalit communities.
Yadav also asserted that reservation could not be ended in India.
"None can put an end to reservation. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called for a review of reservation in 2015, and the people of Bihar taught him a lesson," he said.
Yadav appeared to be referring to the NDA's defeat in the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections against the Mahagathbandhan led by the Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad combine.
The RJD leader further alleged that the BJP was testing public sentiment by "dropping a pebble in the water".
(With inputs from PTI)
