RJD's Manoj Jha meant no insult to Thakurs or any other community: Lalu Prasad Yadav

RJD president Lalu Prasad on Thursday backed to the hilt his party’s Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesman Manoj Kumar Jha, who has been accused of having insulted the ‘Thakurs’ in a Parliamentary speech.

Prasad also ticked off RJD MLA Chetan Anand, who has publicly expressed outrage against portion of the speech made by Jha, while participating in the debate on the Women’s Reservation Bill last week.

“Manoj Jha is a scholarly person. What he has said is perfectly in order. He meant no insult to Rajputs/Thakurs or any other community,” asserted the OBC stalwart, when journalists approached him with queries.

Jha had made an impassioned plea for ensuring adequate representation of women from weaker sections like SCs, STs and OBCs and, true to his poetic style, recited a verse composed by late Dalit writer Om Prakash Valmeeiki.

Titled ‘Thakur ka kuan’, the poem gave a moving description of caste inequality and Jha had added by way of a comment that “we all have a ‘Thakur’ (a term often also used broadly for the land-owning class) within us. We must finish it off”.

Prasad also asserted that “those people who are making noise about Manoj Jha’s statement are trying to galvanise support of members of their caste. They ought to refrain from doing so”.

When his attention was drawn to the outbursts of Anand, a young, first- generation MLA and the latter’s father Anand Mohan Singh, a gangster-turned- politician, both of whom have accused Jha of “Brahmin chauvinism”, the RJD supremo quipped “what to do when they have so little intelligence”.

Prasad also made light of queries about his meeting with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar earlier in the day, which has fuelled speculations in a section of the media that the JD(U) leader was unhappy with the controversy, and the RJD supremo had gone to pacify him.

However, Prasad said, “He is the chief minister. We are alliance partners. Many times he comes over to my place. Today, I chose to visit him. There is no big deal”.

Meanwhile, RJD state spokesman Rishi Mishra wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, demanding “Y-category security” for Jha in the light of the statements given by a number of BJP leaders from Bihar.

Mishra cited remarks made by MLAs Raghavendra Pratap Singh and Neeraj Kumar Singh ‘Bablu’, both of whom threatened Jha with physical violence.

Underscoring that Jha was “a sober person and a recipient of the Best Parliamentarian Award”, Mishra urged Shah to “take serious note of the threat perception”.