Uma Bharti calls for OBC quota in women’s Bill

Bharti brushed aside allegations that she was speaking the language of the Congress party. “People say that I am speaking in the same tone as Congress, on the contrary, the Congress is speaking in my tone. There was a time, when the Congress and BJP spoke the same language — that the OBCs should not get reservation. Today, the Congress has changed its stance under compulsion because they have been wiped out in Bihar and UP,” she said.

Bharti said that OBCs must remain “with the Hindutva fold and not go to leaders who oppose Hindutva, and reservation was the way to achieve that”. “If you want Bharat Mata to be strong then you need to give the OBC community its position, don’t insult them,” Bharti said.

With Saturday’s declaration, Bharti has made a stand contrary to that of the BJP government’s, a trend that has picked up of late as elections approach in the state.

The confrontation with the BJP leadership began when Bharti recently rubbed some BJP leaders the wrong way after she sent a list of 19 names she wanted to see as party candidates in the coming Assembly elections. This came after, one of her supporters Pritam Singh Lodhi was named as the BJP candidate from Pichhore in the coming polls. Her nephew Rahul Singh Lodhi was also inducted in the Chouhan government, which was seen as a move to placate Bharti, who could have damaged the party’s prospects in the state, party insiders said.

However, all that was undone when she was not invited to the Jan Ashirwad Yatra on September 4. “Maybe they (the BJP leaders) are nervous that if I’m there then the entire public attention will be on me,” she had said.