Lalu Prasad gave voice to underdogs of society, deserves Bharat Ratna: Tejashwi

Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Monday asserted that his father Lalu Prasad, a former Bihar chief minister who heads the party, deserved the Bharat Ratna for "giving voice" to the underdogs of the society.

The young leader made the statement at Sonbarsa in Saharsa district, where he was addressing a function on the occasion of the death anniversary of noted socialist leader Karpoori Thakur.

"Just recall the days when late Karpoori Thakur, as the then Bihar chief minister, had introduced quotas for the backward classes, only to be abused by the BJP and its supporters. Years later, the same party conferred on him the Bharat Ratna. This is the power of socialism (‘samajwad’)," Yadav said.

"We see many people hurling abuses at Lalu ji today in a bid to ingratiate themselves with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These very people will one day bat for a Bharat Ratna for Lalu ji, who gave voice to the voiceless in an era when the depressed classes were denied access to wells, and not allowed to wear new clothes and sit on a cot," the RJD leader claimed.

The BJP came into being in 1980, a year after the tenure of Thakur as the Bihar CM had come to an end. The socialist leader was running his government with support of the Jan Sangh, the name by which the BJP was known in an earlier avatar.

Yadav, the leader of the opposition in Bihar assembly, highlighted his father's close relation with Thakur, whose name has come to be invoked by parties cutting across the ideological divide in a bid to reach out to the numerically strong extremely backward classes.

"On the day he breathed his last, Karpoori Thakur was lying down with his head in Lalu ji's lap. He was taken to a hospital in a jeep owned by Lalu ji, who drove the vehicle himself," said the 35-year-old leader.

The former deputy CM pointed out it was only "when we came to power in Bihar" that quotas for backward classes got hiked in line with findings of a caste survey, which showed a rise in the percentage of population of depressed classes.

Taking potshots at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, he said "chacha (uncle) realigned with the BJP, which covertly worked to get the hike in reservations quashed by the Patna High Court. Recruitment is taking place against lakhs of posts in government departments. But, Dalits and backwards are not getting their due".