Shah tells Bhagwat quota remark not behind debacle

BJP president Amit Shah on Monday met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to give his assessment of the defeat in humiliating Bihar elections defeat.

Shah is believed to have distanced the BJP from a section of party leaders – such as Hukumdev Narayan Yadav from Bihar and former Himachal Pradesh chief ministe r  Shanta Kumar – openly blaming RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s comment seeking review of caste-based reservation for electoral loss. It is learnt that Shah told Bhagwat that his statement which the party believes was quoted out of context by the media to mean it was anti-backwards was not the reason for the poll debacle. 

Bhagwat’s statement was heavily quoted by Grand Alliance leaders Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad to convert the Bihar polls into forward versus backward.

“Mohan Bhagwat’s comment at this time, it filled the backward castes and Dalits with mistrust for the BJP. The comment really shook people to the core. In Bihar, people have struggled more against caste discrimination and social exploitation,” party state leader Hukumdev Narayan Yadav told media on Monday.

Even NDA ally HAM (secular) leader Jitan Ram Manjhi said, “Mohan Bhagwat’s reservation comment was not wrong, but election was not the right time to say it. Lalu convinced BJP’s voters that the BJP would abolish reservation.”

Privatetly also leaders believe that it was one of the turning points in elections and wondered why did he repeat his comment despite it had snowballed into a major controversy.