Senior JD (U) leader and state minister Ashok Choudhary on Saturday targeted Leader of Opposition (LoP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, who has decided to embark on a state-wide tour to highlight alleged failures of the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government.
"In his press conference, Yadav had questioned the Nitish Kumar government's commitment to restore hiked reservations for deprived castes and alleged that despite being a part of the ruling alliance at the Centre, our party failed to secure special status for Bihar. He had also claimed that crime graph was soaring in the state," said Choudhary said a day after Yadav announced his plans to undertake the yatra from August 15.
Choudhary, a Dalit, slammed the RJD leader over his party's "failure" to give reservations to SCs and STs in panchayats "for the 15-year period during which it ruled Bihar".
Choudhary pointed out that "Dalits got their constitutional right (reservation in panchayats) only after Nitish Kumar came to power in 2005".
Choudhary, who was formerly with the Congress and had served in the cabinet of Yadav's mother Rabri Devi from that party's quota, asserted, "The RJD has, demonstrably, never been a well-wisher of Dalits and tribals. It was Nitish Kumar who set up a department for SC and ST welfare for which generous budgetary allocations are made."
The JD-U leader criticised Yadav for trying to put the state government in the dock over the hike in reservations for SCs, STs and backward classes, from 50 per cent to 65 per cent, getting quashed by the Patna High Court.
While the government has challenged the order before the Supreme Court, the RJD leader, whose party was sharing power in the state till January, has been accusing Kumar of failure to get the increased quotas placed in the Constitution's ninth schedule, which could make it immune to judicial review.
Choudhary also reminded Yadav that the caste survey, which gave revised estimates of the population of deprived castes, paving the way for a hike in quotas, was "a brainchild of our leader".
(With PTI inputs)
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