PM vows to continue with current reservation policy
NO CHANGE Rejects charge that NDA will reverse job reservation for SC/ST/OBCs
CHHAPRA/HAJIPUR/BIHAR SHARIF/ PATNA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday voiced the NDA’s commitment to continue the country’s reservation policy and accused leaders of the anti-BJP grand alliance of foisting 18thcentury black magic on “aspirational” 21st-century Bihar.
Modi addressed four rallies on the trot — at Marhaura in Saran, Hajipur in Vaishali, Biharsharif in Nalanda and Naubatpur in Patna — ahead of voting in 50 seats in the third phase of the polls.
With his eyes trained firmly on Bihar’s biggest extremely backward caste (EBC) vote bank, he said Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar of the grand alliance pursued backward-forward, casteist politics for electoral gains for 25 years but his elevation to the post of Prime Minister had shaken them.
“They are angry because an extremely backward caste, poor tea-seller’s son has become PM. This is why Lalu and Nitish humiliate me and Congress targeted me for years (over Gujarat riot cases).”
He rejected the rivals’ charge, citing a statement by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, the NDA would do away with job reservation for the SC, ST and OBC communities if voted to power in Bihar.
“We are ruling in many states and nowhere has job reservation been touched,” Modi said. “There is absolutely unanimity in Parliament about reservation. Nowhere is the country is there a demand to reverse it.”
A video showing chief minister Kumar being hugged by a tantric or a black magic practitioner, that has gone viral on the social media, gave Modi to beat his rival. “Earlier we knew the alliance had three partners, Bade bhai (RJD chief Prasad), Chote bhai (JD(U) leader Kumar) and Madam (Congress president Sonia Gandhi). Now, I find it has a fourth player, a tantric.”
“Can tantra-mantra have a place in democracy? Can this 18th-century mentality be expected to address the aspirations of the youth in 21stcentury Bihar? The youth needed computers, not tantra-mantra.”