National president of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP-Ram Vilas) Chirag Paswan on Vijayadasami obliquely referred to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the mythological demon king Ravan. Drawing attention to the festival of Dussehra as symbolising the victory of good over evil, Mr. Paswan said that all evil in Bihar, in particular the caste system in the form of a Ravan, was holding back development in the State.
“The way Dussehra symbolises the victory of good over evil, I hope that whatever evils there are in Bihar, especially the social evil in the form of caste system, who is a Ravan and has stopped the pace of development, I hope these evils will end in days to come,” Mr. Paswan said at the Patna airport while interacting with media persons.
Mr. Paswan has rejected the caste-based survey was released by the Bihar government on October 2, terming it a “political conspiracy”. He has also alleged that the government inflated the population of some castes, and reduced the number of other castes, including the Paswan caste to which he belongs, in the report.
Other Opposition parties in Bihar have also raised objections over the caste-based survey report, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal (RLJD) led by Upendra Kushwaha, and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) led by Mukesh Sahani. The Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular’s (HAMS) founder Jitan Ram Manjhi has said that the surveyors did not meet him. Mr. Kushwaha staged a march to the Raj Bhavan and submitted a memorandum to Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, seeking the latter’s intervention on the caste-based survey report.
Taking a jibe at the allegedly deteriorating law and order in Bihar, Mr. Paswan said crime was peaking in the State, and that it too would end and development prevail. The Jamui MP also hit back at Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav for the latter’s claim that the BJP would lose in all five States — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana — where Assembly elections have been announced.
