Lok Sabha Polls 2024: Karpoori Thakur was in favour of quotas for all backward classes irrespective of religion, says Tejashwi Yadav

Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday lashed out at PM Narendra Modi over his remark that Congress was snatching quotas of OBCs and diverting those to its "vote bank", asserting that socialist leader from Bihar, Karpoori Thakur, on whom the BJP government conferred Bharat Ratna, was in favour of reservation for all backward classes irrespective of religion.

Yadav, whose party RJD is an ally of the Congress, also asked the JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, which recently snapped ties with Mahagathbandhan and returned to the NDA, to clarify its stand on whether they agree with Karpoori Thakur's ideology on this matter.

"The Prime Minister is ill informed... He should know what Karpoori Thakur had said. The late socialist leader was in favour of reservations for all backward classes irrespective of religion", Yadav, the former deputy chief minister, told reporters here.

Yadav claimed that when Thakur had become the chief minister of Bihar for the first time, all backward classes, irrespective of religion, got reservations in the state.

Prime Minister Modi, while addressing election rallies in Araria and Munger on April 27, had lambasted the opposition, accusing the Congress of trying to implement its "Karnataka model of robbing the OBCs of their 27 per cent quota by including all the Muslims, irrespective of their financial status, in the backward castes list"

Notably, Thakur, a former chief minister of Bihar, had been a mentor to the JD(U) supremo as well as Yadav's father Lalu Prasad, who heads the RJD.

The OBC stalwart was chosen for the highest civilian honour earlier this year, in a move, political analysts believe, was aimed at winning over OBCs and the extremely backward classes for the BJP-led coalition.

"Our Constitution and election process, everything is in grave danger. What happened in Surat... BJP won the Lok Sabha seat even before voting... they want to snatch people's right to exercise their franchise", he alleged.

He was referring to Mukesh Dalal, BJP's candidate for Surat Lok Sabha seat, who was elected unopposed.

When asked about BJP president J P Nadda and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's four election rallies in Bihar on Thursday, Yadav said, "It is not going to make any difference. They have already lost the electoral battle... they may call (Donald) Trump or (Vladimir) Putin but nothing is going to change".