JD(U) to non-BJP parties: Use RSS’s ‘anti-quota stand’

“The BJP will taste its impact in UP polls in the same manner it had in Bihar if the issue is effectively taken up,” JD(U) general secretary K C Tyagi told The Sunday Express. Emphasising that the JD(U) is “concerned whether some move is on the anvil to bring an end to quota”, Tyagi said, “We call upon all (non-BJP) opposition parties and social justice organisations to raise the issue to check such anti-social dialogues.”

He also claimed that there’s a pattern behind such remarks, and urged “all deprived sections” of the society to “ensure defeat of anti-reservation forces led by BJP in the UP elections”.

After observing that there should be a “time limit” to reservation during an interactive session at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Vaidya later clarified that the RSS favours reservation, and it should remain as long as discrimination continues.

But calling Vaidya’s remarks a “very serious matter”, Tyagi, who comes from Uttar Pradesh, said, “Time and again such voices have been heard from the RSS and BJP. Being a socialist party, it is our responsibility to flag the danger (attached to such thoughts), and we will do it. The issue of such frequent remarks against reservation by the RSS will be taken up at our core committee meeting in Patna on Monday.”

Tyagi, whose party had earlier called for a Bihar-like grand alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Congress and Ajit Singh’s RLD to check the BJP in UP, also voiced disappointment at non-emergence of such an alliance. But even individually, he said, “all opposition parties which are in favour of reservation in UP — the Congress, SP, BSP, RLD and JD(U) — should make reservation a poll plank” in the UP elections, getting under way in seven phases from February 15.