By PTI
PATNA: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday made an aggressive bid to reach out to the Bhumihar community, a powerful upper caste in Bihar, in an obvious attempt to broaden the support base of his party which has largely been identified with the MY (Muslim-Yadav) combination nurtured by his father Lalu Prasad.
The young leader of the opposition in the state was the cynosure of all eyes at the Parshuram Jayanti organised here by the Bhumihar Brahmin Ekta Manch, a caste-based organisation, which was also attended by many other senior politicians including AICC in charge of the state Bhakt Charan Das.
A sub-caste of the Brahmins, the Bhumihars have their highest concentration in Bihar where they have enjoyed tremendous political and economic clout.
They are perceived to be resentful of a diminution in their clout in the post-Mandal era which saw the emergence of OBC leaders like Prasad and his arch-rival Nitish Kumar, the state’s chief minister for more than a decade and a half.
“Our party has been a victim of a smear campaign that it is opposed to certain caste groups and favours others,” Yadav said at the programme to mark the birth anniversary of Parshuram.
Bhumihars consider Parshuram, a fiery martial ascetic popular in the Hindu folklore and reckoned among the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu, as a cultural icon.
Yadav, whose party helms the Grand Alliance comprising the Left, and also the Congress which has of late grown ambivalent, had raised many eyebrows when he gave tickets to a number of Bhumihars in the recently held biennial elections to the legislative council, some of whom have won.
Besides, the Bhumihars’ dissatisfaction with the BJP, their first party of choice for nearly three decades, is said to have swung decidedly in the RJD’s favour in the by-election to the Bochahan assembly segment which had become a prestige issue for the saffron party.
In his speech, Yadav deftly fished in the troubled waters of the ruling NDA, raking up the much-publicised spat between the chief minister and assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, who is also a Bhumihar, inside the House.
“Never in the history of Bihar or any other state, a Speaker has been insulted in this fashion,” said Yadav, taking care not to mention the caste of Sinha or Kumar, who is a Kurmi, though applause from the crowds suggested that he has struck a chord.
A piquant situation arose in the Bihar Assembly on March 14 when the CM and the Speaker had a heated exchange over whether a matter being probed by the government, which has also been referred to the privilege committee, could be raised on the floor of the House again and again.
“In the 2020 assembly polls, the Grand Alliance’s vote share stood in excess of 40 per cent. The number of votes we polled, across all 243 assembly segments, was just 12,000 less than the NDA. It could have never been possible had we not tried to win the confidence of all sections of society,” said Yadav.
Reminding the people of his poll promise of 10 lakh sarkari naukri (commissioned government jobs), the former deputy CM pointed out that the NDA had tried to counter that with a misleading promise of 19 lakh rozgar (employment) which was yet to see the light of the day.
“It was a hectic day, in view of the Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations. But I could not have turned down the invitation of Bhumihar Brahmins, who are an enlightened lot. I assure you that Tejashwi will never let you down,” said the RJD leader.
He also mocked the BJP’s politics of Hindutva with the remark “most positions of power, whether at the Centre or in states, are held by Hindus. Yet they keep crying Hindu khatre mein hain (Hindus are in danger). Please beware of these diversionary tactics.”
The BJP reacted to Tejashwi’s Bhumihar outreach with a palpable sense of alarm.
The party’s state spokesman Manoj Sharma came out with a strongly worded statement asserting that the people of Bihar could never forget the massacres of thousands of Bhumihars that allegedly took place when the state was ruled by Lalu Prasad and, subsequently, his wife Rabri Devi.