New Delhi: The Opposition’s INDIA alliance did not need Nitish Kumar, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Tuesday, in first comments on the Bihar chief minister’s n-th volte face last week.
At a rally in Bihar’s Purnea, Gandhi said the mahagathbandhan in Bihar — which is now left with the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) after Nitish pulled out to rejoin the Bharatiya Janata Party — would continue to fight for social justice.
“We don’t need Nitish Kumar,” Gandhi told the audience during his ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
Gandhi also cracked a joke at the rally on the alacrity with which Kumar changes parties.
“He takes a U-turn the moment there is a bit of pressure on him,” Gandhi said, adding that Kumar got stuck with the caste census.
“I told him that he had to conduct the caste census… as did the RJD. The other side put pressure on him because the BJP does not want an X-Ray of this country… then everybody will know how many OBCs, Dalits and tribals are there in India,” Gandhi said.
He said the BJP never wanted a caste survey. “It wants to distract people from the actual issue — social justice. Nitishji got stuck in the middle and the BJP opened a door for him. Nitishji fled through that door,” Gandhi told the rally.
The Bihar government was the first state to hold a caste census last year, where data showed that other backward and extremely backward classes constituted 63 percent of the state’s population of 13 crore.
The survey faced major opposition from the BJP which maintained a census was a statutory process under a central legislation and that the law empowered only the central government to conduct it.
The Supreme Court, which heard petitions against the survey, however refused to halt the exercise as no violation had been reported in it. Prior to that, the Patna High Court had also dismissed similar appeals.
At Purnea, Rahul reiterated that the country needed an “X-Ray”. “Let us know which community has what population in this country. How many from general caste, how many OBC, how many farmers, how many labourers, how many tribals, how many Dalits, how many rich, poor and hungry?” he said.
He said the first step to social justice was this “X-Ray”. “We may need to do an MRI later, but first we need an X-Ray,” the Congress leader said.
The INDIA alliance was dealt the first blow last week when Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said her party would go it alone in the state as they were tired of waiting for the Congress to respond to a seat-sharing formula.
The same day, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Punjab Chief Minister Bhangwant Mann said the party would win Punjab 13-0.
The cherry on the cake was Nitish Kumar’s switch late last week, when he walked out of the grand alliance with the RJD and Congress, and patched up with BJP once again, having left it just over 18 months ago.
Kumar was sworn in Sunday as chief minister for the ninth record time, and formed the present government with support of the BJP.
Also read: BJP’s Manoj Sonkar trounces AAP-Congress joint candidate in Chandigarh mayoral polls