Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi today charged RJD-Congress combine with having "cheated the backward classes" of the state while claiming to champion their cause.
"The RJD and the Congress do their politics in the name of the OBCs but in reality they have always cheated the backward classes. The Congress government at the Centre never had the courage to implement recommendations of the report of Kaka Kalelkar Commission tabled in 1953", he said.
"When the Janata Party government assumed power in the country, the Mandal Commission was formed in 1977. But successive Congress governments kept its report in cold storage. Recommendations of the Mandal Commission saw the light of the day only after V P Singh formed a government with the BJP's support", the senior BJP leader said.
The Bihar Deputy CM was addressing a function organized at the state BJP headquarters on the eve of the birth anniversary of former Chief Minister and OBC stalwart Karpoori Thakur.
Seeking to underscore the BJP's pro-OBC stance, Sushil said "Thakur's tenure was marked by introduction of quotas for OBCs in government jobs. His government was supported by the Jan Sangh. When the NDA came to power in the state in 2005, the extremely backward classes were given 20 per cent reservation in local bodies' polls".
He also claimed "in the last Bihar assembly polls, the BJP fielded 25 EBC candidates of whom 12 won. The RJD-Congress combine fielded only five EBCs. Twenty-three MLAs of the ruling BJP-JD(U) combine are EBCs".
Speaking at the same function, Bihar BJP president Nityanand Rai came down heavily on RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, accusing him of "betraying the EBCs in Bihar".
Others who spoke on the occasion included Union Minister Ram Kripal Yadav and state ministers Nand Kishore Yadav, Mangal Pandey and Pramod Kumar.
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