Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad batted for “full” reservation for Muslims on Tuesday, but later modified his statement to assert that it should be as per the Mandal Commission report, which provides quota to around 3,500 Other Backward Castes (OBC) in the country, irrespective of their religion.
“Muslims should get full reservation,” Lalu told reporters in Patna when asked about the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders alleging that the Congress and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) wanted to include the minority community in the OBC category and share its quota with them.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders have been giving the example of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh over the past week to argue that the Opposition was bent on sharing the OBC reservation with the Muslims.
Modi has been asserting that the Constitution did not allow reservation on religious lines, and has been challenging the Congress to come clean on the issue. He has also been asking the Grand Old Party to provide a written clarification that it did not want to share the OBC reservation with the Muslims.
In fact, Modi immediately lapped up the opportunity while addressing a rally at Dhar in Madhya Pradesh after learning about Lalu’s statement.
“The Congress is silent, but one of its allies has confirmed its intentions today. A leader, who has been convicted and jailed in the fodder scam and is out on bail, has said that the Muslims should get reservation. Not only reservation, but ‘full’ reservation. What does this mean? It means that these people want to snatch the reservation from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and give it to the Muslims,” Modi said at the rally.
Within a few hours, Lalu realised that the BJP and its well-oiled publicity machinery could use his comment to the hilt to spread fear among the people, especially, the OBCs, about the quota.
The RJD released his fresh statement, though he did not backtrack completely from his statement about reservation to Muslims and resorted to the Mandal Commission report to support reservation to the followers of religions other than Hinduism. He also used the opportunity to attack Modi.
“The basis of reservation is social backwardness instead of religion. The Prime Minister does not understand this. I got the Mandal Commission implemented. Has Narendra Modi ever read its recommendations? It provides reservation to over 3500 backward castes in which hundreds of castes of other religions also get reservation,” Lalu said.
Speaking further, the RJD chief accused Modi of trying to abolish reservation and said that previously “Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had constituted a commission to review the Constitution in 2000 with an intention to change it.”
Lalu asserted that Modi was “neither a bigger and real OBC than him, nor understood the poor, backwards and Dalits more than him.” He also accused the BJP of inciting people to fight against each other.
“These people do not believe in the Constitution, else they would not have used divisive language to spread hatred,” the RJD chief added.
Lalu’s statements came on a day 93 Lok Sabha seats went to poll across the country in the third phase of the poll. He also pooh-poohed the claims of Modi and the BJP of bagging over 400 seats in the election.
“The third phase poll is going in the favour of INDIA. Long queues of voters are there at the booths. We will lead in all the five seats in Bihar. Modi is himself going ‘paar’ (away) instead of getting ‘400 paar’ (winning over 400 Lok Sabha seats),” Lalu said.
