Tejashwi lashes out at Nitish for not responding to his letter

Patna, June 9 (PTI) RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Monday lambasted Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for not responding to a letter in which he had urged him to raise quotas for weaker sections to "85 per cent".

The former Bihar Deputy CM trained his guns at his ex-boss in a post on his X handle, and wondered whether the JD(U) supremo "does not have a reply or.....bureaucrats do not show him letters addressed to him".

Yadav, who is now the leader of the opposition, also shared a copy of the two-page letter in which he had suggested that a "special session" of the Assembly be convened to pass fresh legislations hiking the quotas, followed by efforts to place these in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, which would protect them from judicial scrutiny.

He noted that similar legislation passed by the Bihar Assembly in 2023 had been set aside by the Patna High Court due to constitutional challenges.

In his latest outburst, Yadav said, "If Nitish Kumar and other NDA partners like (Union ministers) Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi cannot get this demand fulfilled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they should be ashamed of being in the coalition".

Meanwhile, RJD national spokesman Manoj Kumar Jha also addressed a press meet here on the issue and alleged "the state government does not seem to have good intentions with regard to underprivileged sections of society".

"Our supremo Lalu Prasad has always been warning the people against the BJP and its parent body, RSS. Now the Centre stands exposed. After bowing before the demand for caste census, it seems intent upon rendering the exercise meaningless by refusing to disclose the figures", Jha said.

However, JD(U) national spokesman Rajiv Ranjan Prasad hit back, accusing the RJD of using the issue of caste census as a "tool" to gain some traction ahead of the assembly polls in Bihar.

He also reminded the opposition party that while it ruled the state for 15 years, no survey of castes was held, but the one conducted by Nitish Kumar government brought to the fore the rise in population percentage of Dalits and Other Backward Classes. PTI NAC MNB